Never Gone
by Pikajenn
Summary: Sequel to Gone. Gary Oak wasn't content with being dead, and he was going to do whatever he could to not stay that way. Help comes from the last person in the world he'd expect to help. Set after the second movie and completely and utterly AU.
1. Chapter 1

**Disclaimer**: I don't own pokemon or any characters within that franchise; neither do I own the rights to any songs used for setting the mood (or whatever). They all belong to their owners. I only own the idea for this story.

**Behind the Scenes**: Okay, I _wasn't_ going to write a sequel to _Gone_, but the idea simply wouldn't leave me alone. The original lyrics I was going to use as the full inspiration for this story came from a song called "Never Gone" by the Backstreet Boys, hence the 90's boyband title war (as in "Gone" was a song by Nsync). "Never Gone" inspired me a _**lot**_.

However, The Band Perry's "If I Die Young" was on the radio a lot during the time I had begun to write this and as such it also inspired me. _Never Gone_ has been in the works for a while now, and I hope it won't disappoint you, my dear readers.

Something I never really took into consideration in _Gone_ had been the ages of the characters. Although I never mentioned the character's ages directly, I probably initially wrote the story with their ages in the 10-12 year old range in mind. Nevertheless, the content of this sequel puts their ages, in both stories, more into their mid-teenaged years.

Also note that I like the idea of how Professor Oak is middle aged in the manga. So, for both _Gone_ and _Never Gone_, he's in his forties. If you should feel like you want to go back to reread _Gone_, feel free to apply the following ages to that story as well.

Gary – 17

Ash - 17

Misty – 18

Brock – 24

Professor Oak – 44

Also, I had no idea what Gary's umbreon's name was so I made up one of my own. The name I used, Cade, just came to me of its own accord, so I decided to use it. If there is an actual name for the umbreon, please drop me a PM or let me know the umbreon's name in a review.

I've tried my best to make sure ages, pokemon, and locations are in sync with anime continuity, but this is me writing and so there may definitely be errors. Please feel free to point them out in a review or PM.

By the way, this story is rated for random instances of potty mouths from different characters and Gary's lewd (though only implied) thoughts.

I had fun writing this, so I hope you'll enjoy reading it.

**xXxXx**

_The sharp knife of a short life…_

**The Band Perry – If I Die Young**

**xXxXx**

The one thing that death taught me was that nothing I was brought up to know about the afterlife was true. Not one single thing. There were no pearly clouds, no saints in white robes, no golden gates, no angels playing harps, and no tunnels leading to Heaven (or Paradise or whatever it is you want to call it).

On the other hand, I wasn't burning in the flames of hell either. I wasn't being chased by some big red creature with a pitchfork, cloven hooves and a tail, and nothing was screaming at me or torturing me.

At least, nothing that I was _currently_ experiencing resembled all of that. So either I'd really screwed up or it was all made up. Fairytales to get kids to listen to their parents. Not like that had worked with me.

What I _did_ get to see was my sister struggling with her nightmares of me. When I first realized I was dead and not moving on, I visited my family. To try to get their attention, I'd tried screaming and yelling, tried moving items and giving people a creepy vibe, because that's what ghosts do. At least, that's what I thought they did. Turned out that no one could hear me and I couldn't touch a damned thing.

So I watched them sleep. Gramps was fortunate enough to sleep right through the night, every night. I guess his work was draining or something. May was another story altogether. She couldn't sleep, though she continually denied prescription sleep aids. I knew she was dreaming of me because if she wasn't crying in her sleep, she'd be bolting upright in bed in the middle of the night. She'd immediately look to the framed picture of me that she kept on her nightstand. Sometimes when she looked at my picture, she'd cry or otherwise sniffle. Rarely did she smile at my picture.

No, I'm not that arrogant that I'd request my picture to be framed and put on her nightstand.

Okay, _maybe_ I am…or was…but I'm not now, and for the record I didn't have May put a picture of me by her bed. She'd done that on her own accord, though oddly enough, she'd done that about two months before The Incident.

The thing is, I'm her baby brother and she couldn't save me. She hadn't been anywhere close enough to even try. That hurt her. All of our lives as we'd grown up, she'd done her best to protect me, to make sure that nothing hurt me.

Just this once, she couldn't.

_Damnit, I'm sorry, May. I never meant to hurt you so much._

_And Gramps, that goes double for you. _

Though he puts on a brave face and continues his daily routine, I know he struggles, too.

He still sends out Pallet's youth.

Still tends to the lab's pokemon.

Still conducts his research.

And still provides the best care for Ash's tauros herd.

Even though I'm sure he knew that the tauros that killed me wasn't one of Ash's herd, and that it was just being an overly hormonal tauros, it was evident that Gramps had a new outlook on the tauros species as a whole.

He didn't trust them anymore. I could see it as he went through his daily routine. I personally know that he once had a healthy dose of respect for tauros as a species, but he had also carried trust in them. Not anymore. He didn't even seem to want to interact with them at all. He had since delegated care of the tauros herd to Tracey, and required his assistant to bring at least two high level psychic pokemon with him whenever the herd needed fed or otherwise maintained. That the psychic pokemon had to know teleport was mandatory.

Even though he hid it from everyone else, I knew my Gramps. I could see the smallest narrowing of his eyes, or the slightest clench of his jaw, and I _knew_. When he watched the herd stampeding over the flat meadows, or watched them spar with one another, I knew he was thinking about what had happened to me.

While I felt sorrow for Gramps and May, I knew I'd done the best I could at the time. Knew I had to do _something_ to try to save Ash. Certainly I would've reconsidered my actions, had I known I'd be gored to death.

I'm arrogant, not stupid.

The way I _had _wanted to be remembered was quite simple. I'd wanted to be remembered as the Trainer who beat the Elite Four. The one who kept winning over Ash Ketchum time and time again. Grand Master and eventual leader of the Elite Four. I wouldn't mind an action figure of myself, or even a movie documenting my rise to greatness.

What I didn't want to be known as was someone who was given fifteen minutes of fame, someone who had the spotlight on the news for sacrificing himself and not even knowing if the other person was saved. I didn't know if Ash had been safe, but I had _hoped_ that his pokemon were at least smart enough to keep him out of harm's way. For all I had known at that moment in time, he could've been as dead as I was soon to be.

Don't get me wrong. I know I'm well known beyond fifteen minutes of fame.

I'm Gary Oak, after all. Fame and glory kind of go hand in hand. It's practically in my DNA.

Despite the emotional difficulties my death caused my family, I knew that Ash's mom, Delia, would've been far more inconsolable than May and Gramps combined. More than likely, Ash's death, if it had happened, would've killed her. She and Ash have a mother/son bond that's pretty awesome. Knowing first hand how dangerous pokemon are, I'm kind of surprised that she hadn't demanded that her pride and joy give up the Trainer's lifestyle when I died. That he go to school instead.

School. I know I'm digressing far beyond what would be considered polite conversation, but I _hated_ school. We Trainers didn't always travel all the time. School was required, be it traditional schooling, migratory schooling (where you could train and travel, but stop in at schools along the way), or online school (do I really need to explain that one to you?). Any of those options were as boring or as exciting as the Trainer/student would make them out to be.

School always bored me, which was why I hated it. Gramps used to tell me that it was boring to me because I was too smart for school.

Yeah, sure. _Smart_. That's why I ended up with tauros horns in my stomach. Do you know how many sit-ups and crunches I did daily to get a stomach that flat? Fat lot of good a sixpack did against a pissed off tauros.

And that angry tauros goring me? That hurt, by the way, like being sucker punched by a machamp. It shoved all the air from my lungs. Not being able to breathe had me losing my sight to a large amount of white stars dancing over my vision. _Then_ I started bleeding like it was going out of style.

Internal bleeding.

External bleeding.

You ever see a campy horror movie where blood sprays everywhere? Yep, that was me after the tauros yanked his head back. I was still impaled on his horns, which must've pissed him off even more. He jerked his head to the side and I went flying. I didn't have enough strength to drag myself into the cover of some bushes, or to hide _somewhere_.

The campy horror killer was after me with a laser-like focus.

And Ash…poor Ash. He might've thought he was safe in the tree, and he _was_ safe from the tauros, but he couldn't avoid the blood geyser I'd turned into.

And the hooves.

Some might say that it was fortunate for me that tauros hooves are not as hard or sharp as those of a Rapidash. I would disagree. Even as my eyesight had been dimming, I could still see the hooves coming, but for the first time in my life, I was too weak to do anything and –

"_**Stop **_it_."_

The highly irritated voice of my Umbreon jerked me back into the present. Cade's ruby eyes glittered angrily as he looked up at me.

"I swear, I _**will**_ leave if you continue moping in the past like this." He stood up and shook himself off.

Cade hates it when I reminisce.

Lately I've been getting a feeling that this is all I have to look forward to.

No moving on.

No peace.

No shimmering golden gates.

Just this endless wandering. No one can see me and I can't even talk to anyone.

It's just a _bit_ depressing.

**xXxXx**

Celebi.

Cade had interrupted my pity party to talk to me about _Celebi_.

To be honest, I wasn't sure why Cade brought up the subject of Celebi. You'll find out in a little bit, but I had to wait for a few hours. At first I thought it was an effort to get me out of the "oh noez, it suckz 2 be me" funk that I had let myself slide into. What could I say? It was easier to be depressed than it was to figure out what it was that I was supposed to be doing with my afterlife.

Then again, I didn't really have anyone or anything to guide me. I felt utterly abandoned. If it wasn't for Cade, I think I'd have gone insane long by now. Just the sight of my own grave the first time almost did me in. Realizing that I was pretty much forsaken in this…this…

What word _was_ there to even describe my predicament? I'd gotten myself into a ton of fucked up situations before, but nothing even remotely close to this.

Cade growled low in his throat. I'd learned that a growl like that was the only warning he'd give me before biting me, if he was sufficiently pissed at me. He'd done so before, so I took his warning as a serious one. Yes, Cade could interact with me. I wasn't sure how, he wasn't sure how, and I wasn't gonna question it. He was my only anchor to the life I'd known. Even a bite was welcome. I had no nerve endings, so the bites never truly hurt me, and while his bites couldn't draw blood or leave bruising, there _was_ a slight phantom sensation (pun intended) of minor pain. Usually it was enough to get me focused on whatever was at hand that was more important than whatever angst I was dealing with.

"Okay, okay," I sighed. "I'm done moping."

The growls ceased.

"For now, anyway," I let a grin spread over my face and I chuckled at his frustrated snort. "So, what's on the agenda, little brother?"

"A meeting, of sorts."

"A meeting?" I stared at him. "Oh, man, the insanity is spreading, isn't it? I knew I should've had you vaccinated or something at your last physical. And now I can't because I'm…"

"I'm _not_ crazy," Cade snapped his teeth at my fingers, only slightly serious. "It seems that Celebi has been looking for you."

"Celebi?" My mind flew through the names of pokemon. It wasn't as if Celebi was a human name. "The little green and white thing?"

"For Lugia's sake, do _**not**_ call her that to her face!" Exasperation laced his words. "She's a Legendary pokemon with Legendary powers. I know it'll be hard for you, but _don't_ piss her off."

The joke I'd been about to say slipped from my mind when I realized that I _did_ know of Celebi, and I knew what it was that Celebi did so well.

"She's a time traveler."

The look that my umbreon leveled at me was more serious than I'd ever seen on him. "_**Don't**_ get your hopes up. I know exactly what you'd want her to do, but believe me when I say to not order her around."

Just the thought of the possibility of turning back time, of not being killed, made me weak all over. Weakness wasn't something I was too eager to admit, but I slumped against the tree behind me as if I actually had substance.

For once, I didn't sink _through_ the tree.

"What else could she possibly want?" I couldn't hide the mix of worry and excitement from my pokemon's ears. I didn't care. "Maybe…maybe there was a mistake. I wasn't supposed to die, and she wants to fix what was screwed up." Then a thought crossed my mind. "What if _Ash_ was supposed to die?"

But Cade, who chose to sit next to me, was shaking his head. "No. That one…Ash…he's supposed to live."

A heavy sigh escaped me. "That Chosen One thing, right?"

"Yep."

A moment of silence passed by before Cade stood and stretched. "I gotta go hunt something. I'll be back as soon as I can."

"Yeah, I'll be here."

He studied me for a moment, ruby eyes reflecting the setting sun. "Regarding Celebi…you _might_ not be too far from being right."

My eyes narrowed and I looked over at him, but he was already gone, leaping into the nearby underbrush. I shook my head and sighed.

What could a Legendary time traveling pokemon want with me, if not to help out with my living challenged status?

**xXxXx**

Cade hunted better at night than any other time of day. While he was away on his hunting trip, I took a trip of my own. Time had since begun to not make a whole lot of sense to me. Oh, I still recognized days and weeks and months, but hours and minutes and seconds began to not matter all that much. I didn't need to eat, drink, or sleep.

Come to think of it, if my skin sparkled in the sunshine, I'd be like…

…Nah. I wasn't about to go _there_.

But being dead did have some advantages.

There weren't many places that I couldn't go. I could watch any movie I wanted, see any concert, go into any art gallery or museum. I could walk through any store after hours, slip right into any bank vault in the world.

Not that it really mattered since I couldn't take anything because I couldn't touch anything.

Bah. You've heard all this before.

Waiting for Cade to return was swiftly becoming boring. There were only so many things my mind could think up of while waiting. As such I thought about visiting people. After all, Cade's hunt could take a while. Why stay here? Why not go on a little trip?

It had occurred to me to visit my family, but I wasn't really up to being reduced to a sob fest. I'm an arrogant prick, I know, but I _do_ have feelings. Being in the same room as my sister and Gramps, but not speak to them or be seen by them, not being able to even hug one of them, all of that flat out sucked.

If I could redo my life, knowing what I know now as a dead guy, I'd have made changes. When I was alive and in public situations, like parties or out Training, I was never affectionate beyond what was courteous. And while I wasn't a sappy little mama's boy in private, while I was never afraid of hugging what remained of my family, I didn't do that sort of thing often. Having the kind of public attention on me that I did, not just with having a famous grandfather but also being the star Trainer that I was, I doubt my sister or Gramps ever took offense to my actions if I was curt with them or if I wasn't overly affectionate. They knew I had an image to live up to.

May didn't really like my public image, and she shunned the fame circus as much as she could, but she knew that I couldn't look like some kind of a sissy.

My last actions kind of threw a monkey wrench in all of that. Or maybe just some of it.

Thoughts of Ash brought me to thoughts of someone else who was periodically in and out of Ash's life.

Misty.

The fiery redhead was _hot_. Far too hot for a wimp like Ash to know what to do with. Oh yeah, I'd noticed her, a lot. I noticed when Ash split up his little group to go to other regions and I'd almost gone in for the kill. Yes, gone in for the kill. Using sayings like that never seemed morbid. I might be dead now but I wasn't then and I'd had Misty in my sights.

A tauros with romance on his mind put an end to my own notions of romance.

Okay, so I know it sounds clichéd, but I was very close to making a move on Misty. Ash was out of the picture, long out of the picture and traveling somewhere in Hoenn. I knew that Brock was with him, as was a new girl named May. I was more than a little jealous since I'd never gotten to travel that far as a Trainer when I was alive.

I also wasn't able to do something else, which was to have a serious significant other. The person I'd had in mind for that was Misty. It was one thing to hook up with the girls who loved you for your status. It was quite another to date someone who could see past the fame. I was seventeen, and being the lively virile male I was, I didn't think random dating was a bad idea. It was, in fact, a great way to pass the time. Or at least, it had been. Heh. It was a pastime that probably didn't put me in Misty's good books, if she'd been keeping tabs on me.

I'd visited Misty a couple of times already and, surprise surprise, I found out that she _did_, in fact, seem interested in me. She wasn't a stalker, with tons of newspaper clippings and posters of me all over her walls. Misty kept it practical with a simple picture of me. It was a photograph, an actual photograph and not something printed out from her laptop. My picture's place of honor was on her dresser mirror, with one corner jammed into the mirror's wooden frame. I didn't know where she'd gotten it, but I could guess that it might have come from May. My sister was a hopeless romantic.

And, yes, I admit it. I snuck into Misty's bedroom, but I swear that she hadn't been in the room at the time. I'm not _that_ much of a pervert. Okay, so maybe I _could_ be that much of a pervert, but I do have some manners.

One cool thing about being dead is that I don't have to walk everywhere all the time. Sometimes if I think of someone (or somewhere) deeply enough, and if I have a clear enough picture of them (or it) in my mind, I can just be there with them. I can do this with actual locations, like say Pummelo Stadium, but I preferred to visit people, not places. And yeah, _theoretically_ I'm traveling farther than Ash, but it's not the same when you can't physically experience it. You can't interact with other people when you're dead. You can't catch pokemon. You can't experience it at all.

So for this little trip I considered the one person that had snagged my heart. Misty.

My thoughts honed in on Misty. Seeing her in my mind as clearly as I was, it didn't surprise me too much when my surroundings blurred and reformed in an outdoor location. I found myself standing on a patio overlooking a large in-ground pool. Being that Misty's home was an hour away from the location Cade and I called home, it was fully dark out. The moon and stars shimmered brightly overhead in a cloudless summer sky.

The Cerulean Gym didn't have living quarters attached to the gym as others did. The gym leader could live at the gym, if desired, but who really wants to live where they work? As I understood it from Gramps, there was an apartment somewhere in the Cerulean Gym. I never cared enough to dig deeper in that subject, even though Misty had caught my attention. What I did know was about the home belonging to the gym. It was a modest ranch house situated on a cliff overlooking the ocean. Of course, right? There was a pool that was on a level area behind the house, and beyond the pool was a grassy weedy area (one of those 'left to nature, isn't it pretty' things), and beyond that was the cliff itself.

There was only one person around me and she was swimming in that pool. Slicing clean lines through the dark chlorinated water, Misty swam as if nothing else in the world mattered. Her long red hair was darkened by the water and it flowed behind her like a banner. I watched her swim, watched her slide under the water's surface, and come back up for air. I don't know how long I watched her, but she eventually decided enough was enough. She stopped swimming laps at the far end of the pool, resting one slender arm on the stone that edged the pool. She almost seemed distracted, but that only lasted a moment before she swam gracefully for a nearby ladder.

It was very difficult to look away, but I did out of respect, and I grinned as I did.

Dear Misty had a naughty streak in her.

"Skinny dipping, Mist?" I murmured low, though it wasn't as if she'd hear me even if I screamed it. "Kinky." I listened for the sounds of a towel being used, heard other rustling fabric, and turned around.

It was the perfect time to look. While I had sadly missed out on getting a glimpse of her unclothed body, as she had covered herself by the towel and was thereby no longer naked, she was breathtaking in how gorgeous she looked _with_ clothes on. Who says guys can't be mature? She was staring out at the ocean with an intensely deep and thoughtful expression.

Naturally I took the opportunity to do some staring of my own. Namely at her. If I was alive, I'd get bitchslapped faster than I could blink for the length of time that I stared at her. But now…Well, let's just say I could stare as long as I pleased.

No oogling, no leering, just…intent watching. She was gorgeous, with that tapered nose, high cheekbones, and her eyes…

I could lose myself in her eyes. The color was a blue shade that Ash often joked looked like the water in the Cerulean Gym's pool, but then again, Ash was never very elegant with his words.

Could _I_ do better? Of course. I'd once seen pictures that my Gramps had of his time in Greece. The shimmering waters surrounding Santorini were a blue green mix that was dazzling and stunning, reflecting a mystifying azure shade that seemed unnatural. The color of Misty's eyes were just like that.

"What are you thinking about?" I murmured and cocked my head to the side. "Doubt you're thinking about me, but a guy can hope, hnn?"

She had pulled her hair back into a sloppy ponytail. Left loose, it would nearly reach her waist, but it was restrained in a wet, dark red mass. Her skin shimmered like a pearl under the moonlight. A bead of water slid from the dark strands of her hair, ran over the bare skin of her shoulder, and disappeared into the towel. She tugged her towel over her shoulders and shivered a little. She'd also pulled on a tank top and shorts, but remained barefoot.

Taking advantage of one of the many wooden chaise lounges, I focused on not slipping through the wooden slats, sat back on one of the chairs, and got comfortable. I wasn't sure how long Cade would be and figured I'd make the best of it. Sometimes his hunting trips took hours.

"Wish I'd been just a bit faster in trying to get to you," I mused quietly. "But I doubt you'd have ever said yes."

Why was I still talking in such a low voice? It wasn't as if she'd hear me.

Sudden frustration gripped me and I stood and walked over to her. To face her, to look her in the eyes as if we really were carrying on a conversation, I had to be standing partially in the decorative weeds and partially _in _the railings of the fence that wrapped around the pool area, but that was a moot point to my internal anger.

Staring her in the eyes, I talked to her in the most seductive voice I could manage. Don't laugh. I've gotten a lot of chicks with that tone of voice. "Five minutes, Misty. Give me five minutes and I'll give you a taste of what I can do to make you the most sexually satisfied woman in the entire region. I'll leave you begging me for more."

If I was alive, I'd have had one of her palms slapped across my face or maybe just flat out punched. I'd also have been impaled several times over by this fence, but huzzah for already being dead.

Her eyes remained fixed on points beyond me. Her hands were steady on the towel. Not a muscle in her face twitched with what should've been Seriously Explosive Misty Anger. Trust me, she lives up to that notorious short temper thing red-heads have. Ash isn't the only one who's been hit by one of her famous mallets.

Yes, there have been a couple of times that I've met Misty and her Mallet of Rage. No, those tales weren't publicized at all. You wouldn't have heard of them, and I'm sure not going to repeat the story of how I met her mallets.

My anger vanished and I sighed. Laughed bitterly and sighed again. "I guess I shouldn't have expected anything."

In a moment of pure pissiness, I walked through her instead of around her.

Looking over my shoulder, I grinned wickedly. She shivered and suddenly looked startled.

Misty looked around her as if searching for whatever caused the crawling feeling on her arms. "Oh….not a spider, not a bug, pleeeease, not a bug!" There was real fear in her voice. "I knew I shouldn't have come out so late at night."

"I am _not_ a bug!" I snorted disdainfully.

She blinked, several times, and was staring in my direction. "I'm going nuts." She wiped at her arms and sighed. "Mistaking some stupid spider for…" but she didn't finish her sentence and sighed again. She turned away and, padding around the pool, then broke into a slight jog back towards the house. I watched as she opened a door on a back patio and went inside the large home. The door shut behind her and I was alone. Again.

Now I felt like an idiot. As much as I was infatuated with her, I'd forgotten about her fear of insects and all things buggish. Then again, I didn't think she'd sense me at all.

While Ash had traveled with her for years, my time interacting with Misty was quite limited. I'd seen her through tv interviews and magazine articles, but I didn't have the time when I was alive to actually ask Misty out. Because my Gramps worked pretty exclusively with the Kanto Gyms, I did get to meet the Gym leaders. I got to meet Misty's sisters first, and met her a few times afterwards. Uh, the mallet story would have Chapter One placed here.

Misty's first impression of me wasn't one she'd ever forget. _Sigh_. I suppose my reputation preceded me by a lot. I never got a chance to even get close to asking Misty out on a date, even after she'd parted ways with Ash.

And while I did die, and most spectacularly at that, I didn't die a virgin. Hell no. Not by a long shot.

"So how many girls _did_ you mate with?"

Despite being a ghost, I almost jumped from Cade's sudden question.

"What?" The umbreon asked the quesion with an innocent look in his crimson eyes. "Did I scare you?"

A side-effect of Cade being linked to me as much as he is was that he could teleport as well. For him it was different. He called it shadow walking and said it was something just about any dark pokemon worth its weight could do. The difference for him was that he had some kind of a fix on me and could find me wherever I was. Sometimes, like now, it wasn't as convenient for me as it was for him.

"Shut up," I glared at the dark pokemon. "You know damned well that you did."

"So how many females _did_ you…"

"How did you even know what I was thinking about?"

"I ate a psychic type for dinner," Cade deadpanned. "Just a little side effect."

"You're so full of shit."

"No, I'm full of psychic." He stared at me with his ruby eyes. "Okay, I'm lying. You're just that easy to read, boss." A pause. "Not that you're _easy_…"

Nice side effect of being dead is that no matter how embarrassed I was my face couldn't turn beet red. The whole 'no blood' thing and all. You know, since I left most of that on the ground back when I died.

"Fifteen," I answered truthfully. "Names withheld for confidentiality." A loophole here was that he asked about sex. Not about how many I'd dated. There's a difference. A _really_ big difference.

"Confidentiality?" He blinked, then said in a sarcastic tone of voice, "You, keeping something confidential? Really?"

"I'm not gonna play the jerk and turn the tables on you," I smirked. "I could, but maybe I don't feel like hearing the answer."

A matching evil look was on his muzzle but he didn't say a number. "Celebi."

"Isn't that…not legal? Even for you? Legendary pokemon are pretty, well, legendary."

"You're an idiot." The evil look faded into disgust. "I didn't _mate_ with Celebi! I meant that she wants to see you!"

The contented feeling I'd had at seeing Misty faded into sudden apprehension. "Now?"

"Now." His claws ticked against the stone of the patio. "And hurry up. You _don't_ want a Legendary seeking you out."

"Where are we meeting her?"

"Back at the…" Cade paused. "She wants to see you at your grave."

"Oh joy," I said in a chirpy tone. "A morbid Legendary."

**xXxXx**

Gramps took good care of my grave. Either he did it of his own accord, or May nagged him to do it. I knew he maintained it because I saw him doing so, many times, and sometimes May accompanied him. As it was, May's touch was evident in the number of plants that flanked my black marble headstone. She was always really good at getting flowers to grow.

"Those are nice," Cade said as he looked at some new flowers. "I really like the purple ones."

"Whatever you say," I snickered. "Maybe you can help May with planting some more."

"Don't make me bite you," My umbreon said with a slightly curled upper lip. "Dead humans don't taste good."

"Yeah, well, I'm a ghost, so your argument is fail."

"Done yet, boys?" The voice that came out of thin air was light and airy, and sounded like I thought a wind chime would if one could talk. The pokemon appeared out of nowhere and sat on the top of my headstone and tilted her head to look up at me. "Hello, Gary Oak."

"Celebi," I bit out as pleasantly as I could (which wasn't very).

Her large green eyes turned to my pokemon. "Hello, Cade the umbreon."

He actually bowed a little. "Lady Celebi."

"No time for formalities, I'm afraid," the lithe sprite-like pokemon stared at me and sighed. "You weren't supposed to die, Gary Oak. It was a foolish miscalculation on your part _and_ an error on the part of your guardian."

A stupid feeling of relief flew through me. It was a mistake! I wasn't supposed to be dead!

"I _knew_ it!" I said triumphantly. "Can you unkill me or something?"

Ever by my side, Cade groaned softly at my outburst.

"No," Celebi said softly. "That does not mean that I will turn back time to – as you so eloquently put it – unkill you."

"Why not?!"

"You'd have to take that up with Arceus." Celebi shrugged. "I'm not in charge of unkilling."

Depression, all over again. My world was crumbling all around me.

"No, it's not," Celebi said in a chastising tone. "Stop being such a baby."

"Stop reading my mind!" I growled out. "What is with you pokemon and reading my mind?"

"What do you mean '_you_ _pokemon'_?" Cade snapped out.

"And anyway, I'm practically a baby!" I defended myself. "I'm just a child!"

"You're a teenager who's already mated with a large number of females," Cade said in a not helpful manner. "You're far from being a child."

"You," I glared at my pokemon. "Shut up!"

"He's correct in his observations," Celebi stood on my headstone. "And you are lucky that none of those matings resulted in offspring."

My pride took a nosedive. "I can't think of any girl who wouldn't want a baby by me and…"

"Boss, don't think too much of yourself or anything," Cade broke in. "This is just Celebi, one of the Legendary pokemon. I'm sure she's glad to hear you carrying on about yourself like this. You know, instead of the important things she has to tell you. Please, keep on going."

There was a heavy silence around us. Not even a cricket dared to chirp.

"So, you're done?" Cade blinked up at me innocently.

"**_Yes_**, I'm done!"

Cade grinned. "Cool. So, Celebi…"

The little sprite laughed. "I'm so very glad that your spirit is still so full of life, Gary Oak." Her mirthful gaze turned serious in a split second. "You will need it."

I shrugged. "Yeah…" A pause. "Wait, a guardian?!"

**xXxXx**

Not a guardian, but a Guardian. Big G. Not every human had a big G, but all had a guardian…little g. Guardians were supposed to guard people, kind of like guardian angels. Unlike guardian angels, these were living individuals, mainly pokemon, but occasionally humans. The other guardians, little g's, were people or pokemon that weren't always alive, as it was easier for a spiritual guardian to help their charge.

Confusing? Yeah, it doesn't make much sense to me either.

"_Who_ is my guardian?" I asked the diminutive green and white pokemon. Hey, I called her diminutive, not small.

"I cannot divulge that information."

"Can't or won't?"

Cade made a little choking noise at my demand, but I shrugged it off. I had questions and she had answers.

"Both."

I blew out a frustrated, yet nonexistent, breath. "Why not?!"

"Because you will attempt to take some sort of revenge on him for slipping in his duties," Celebi paused. "Or you will try to talk him into talking me into changing the past."

"Him? What was _he_ doing while _I_ was getting gored?"

"He was trying to not die in a dire situation of his own."

My eyes flicked to where Cade was settled by my feet.

"No, Cade is not your Guardian."

"So this _he_," I ground out between angrily clenched teeth. "Is he a human or pokemon?"

Celebi hesitated, but answered me. "Human."

Annoyance was taking over my common sense. "Then _who_, damnit?!"

Celebi was unperturbed by my behavior. "Patience, Gary Oak. He is almost here." And she went back to meditating, complete with her eyes closed and legs crossed in a modified lotus position.

"He's coming _here_?" I glared at the Legendary pokemon. "Some stupid, _lazy_, son of a bitch let me die while he was off doing whatever, and now he gets to see the results of his handiwork. Nice. Real nice."

Celebi sighed a little in annoyance, then sat up a little straighter, if possible. Her eyes opened and a smile spread across her small face. "He is here."

"And other than me kicking his ass," I flicked ineffectively at a purple flower, "is there a reason why I should care?"

A tall, lean man appeared behind my tombstone. Literally appearing out of thin air, but I knew he wasn't a ghost. Hey, I'm dead. It was kind of just one of those things that I knew.

For a moment, the moonlight hid his face from me. I could see his black hair was cropped short, almost military like. He was wiry lean, though far from lacking in muscles, and looked like he could effectively kick some ass all on his own. He wore a white short sleeved t-shirt, blue jeans and, when he stepped around the headstone, I could see that he had on a pair of black hiking boots.

"Hey, Celebi," the man said in a pleasant voice, and grinned when the Legendary pokemon flew up to greet him with a hug. "Hope I didn't miss too much."

My hands curled into fists when he looked at me and I could see his face. Unlike Cade, when I curled my upper lip in a snarl, I _wanted_ to draw blood. "You fucking asshole!"

The man smiled at me, a little sadly, though his easy going mannerisms were a cold contrast to my growing fury. "Hey, Gary."

Although it was a move as ineffective as me flicking a flower, I leaped at Ash Ketchum with murderous intent.

**xXxXx**

Sooo...I hope that was a good first chapter! I couldn't just leave _Gone_ as a one-shot, could I? (pays no attention to the amount of time that's passed since _Gone_ was actually published)

As to the part where I sort of broke the fourth wall in hinting to _Twilight_, yeah, I couldn't resist. Sorry! lol. **Disclaimer**: Twilight, and all of its sparkling in the sunlight, belongs to the author that wrote it. She knows who she is.

I hope you liked it! Future chapters will be posted every Tuesday (just like a tv show!). If anything with the formatting is annoying, please let me know.

See ya next Tuesday!


	2. Chapter 2

True to ghostly form and inexperience, I didn't land a blow on Ash. As expected, I flew right through him, but instead of him feeling the chills I usually gave to people, in which I gave them the creepy crawly feeling and I didn't feel a thing, every fiber of _my_ non-corporeal form tingled as if I was shocked by an electric type pokemon, while Ash just looked guilty.

"What the _fuck_?!"

"Language, Gary," Ash, the asshole in question, had the nerve to rebuke me.

"Fuck _**you**_!" I spat out. "This is…this is ridiculous!"

Ash and Celebi exchanged looks, which pissed me off even more.

"How the hell are you so…so…" I sputtered with a complete loss of coherence. "You're _old_!"

"I'm not old!" Ash rolled his eyes. "I'm only thirty-six."

"Older than me." The words hurt to say and I turned from Ash. "Older than I'll _ever_ be."

Cade was looking up at me with an unfathomable expression in his eyes. I stared at him for a moment longer, feeling anger boiling in my gut, and then I realized something.

Spinning around, I pinned both Ash and Celebi with a glare. "Him, he's the one, isn't he?"

The Legendary's eyes widened a fraction, barely enough to be classified as a movement, but I saw it.

I knew.

She knew.

He knew.

They _both_ knew.

Even Cade knew.

Nausea mixed with my righteous fury and indignation. Ash _Ketchum_ was my guardian?

"Big G," Celebi said in that gentle voice of hers. "And not the Ash you know. Your Guardian is specifically _this_ Ash."

But I was shaking my head and backing away. "No, this is impossible. It's impossible and it doesn't make sense! This is absurd!"

There was no way that I was sticking around to hear more of this crap. Images began to flow through my thoughts and my surroundings began to blur. As I thought of the location I'd soon be at solidified in my mind, I could see Celebi looking disappointed that my decision was to run, but I didn't care.

My biggest rival was my Guardian? True, I was constantly pwning him whenever he challenged me, but still and all, to have Ash being my Guardian?! Screw this. I'd go back and see Misty again and see if I couldn't calm down a little.

"No, Gary," Ash's damned super calm voice interrupted my thoughts. "You're not going anywhere."

He didn't do anything, nothing I could see, but suddenly my surroundings sharpened and the cemetery was all that surrounded me. My stomach clenched as a slight backlash of energy hit me. This had only happened when I first started to teleport and I didn't have the concentration I did now.

"What the fu-"

"Can it, Gary," Ash snapped.

His tone of voice booked no refusal and I clamped my mouth shut. Questions buzzed through me at lightning speed. Specifically how did he keep me from leaving?

"It's easy, really," Ash said calmly. "I'm the Chosen One."

Oh yeah. That explained everything clear as mud.

Pissed me off that even _**Ash**_ was reading my thoughts.

**xXxXx**

A couple of weeks after I'd died, back when everything I felt was nothing but raw and angry and furious, I ranted and raved. Namely about how I wished that Ash had been the one who was gored and stomped to death.

Not me.

_Never_ me.

Cade had explained to me that Ash was destined for greatness. All of the world's pokemon had been awaiting his arrival for a long time. He had abilities, _powers_, that marked him as the Chosen of Arceus. Basically, Ash was the liaison of Arceus and had the powers to back that up. He would take care of the world's pokemon as much as he could, keep the Legendaries in line, and make sure that humans didn't abuse the powers that the pokemon had, be that abuse towards other humans or to other pokemon.

At first I couldn't believe it. Little Ash from Pallet was the chosen of Arceus, the god of pokemon? Then I remembered a lot of weird things that had happened; among those being the incident in Shamuti when the Legendary birds had gone nuts and kept on attacking each other. The weather all over the world had gone haywire. Tv reports came in from Shamouti, and of all people in the world that _could_ be in the center of that mess that I'd seen in video clips it had to be Ash.

Cade told me that Ash was even referred to in the Shamouti prophesy. That the world would turn to Ash.

But if that was the truth, I had questions of my own. Why hadn't Ash saved _me_ with his so called powers? Why hadn't he stopped the tauros from goring me…or at least kept the stupid bull pokemon from finishing the job of killing me. Why hadn't he done _something_?!

To which Cade explained that the Ash I had saved hadn't yet fully come into his powers. He was limited to understanding the speech of pokemon, taking care of lower level arguments, disrupting any of Team Rocket's lame plans for Evil World Domination, and the like. A tauros in the midst of a musk induced rage had currently been beyond his capabilities.

And how, I had snarkily replied, was it that Future Ash didn't save me?

Cade had admitted that he didn't know, but maybe Future Ash had been helping me to save little Ash.

My mind had spun at the insinuation. Had Future Ash had a hand in my demise? It made no sense to me, specifically if I was supposed to _not be dead_. Why would Future Ash assist in saving little Ash and not me as well?

And Cade, dear Cade, had nipped my hand to get me to think of other things.

I know what you're thinking, mostly because I was thinking it as well. How did Cade know all of this stuff?

He told me that it was something he had known. All pokemon knew that Ash was the Chosen One. That wasn't to say that all of the pokemon were fully one hundred percent loyal to the thought, especially since Ash was just a teenager and didn't have all of his powers, but they all knew who and what Ash was to them, and what he would grow to be.

So why, then, had the tauros attacked at all?

The four of us were in a clearing in a forest close to the cemetery. Ash had started a small fire (with his _powers_. Blew my mind that Ash had powers. It was just a bit freaky.) and was roasting, of all things, a marshmallow that would be turned into a s'more. It wasn't the first marshmallow to be roasted. My former rival had already consumed several s'mores.

Yes, fangirls, Ash loves him some s'mores.

It was still dark out, not even close to dawn, but Cade had curled up at the base of a nearby tree, while Celebi had taken to roosting in one of the branches of the same tree. I was sitting, as it were, on a small boulder, and Ash was sitting on a log that used to be the trunk of a fallen tree. We'd been talking about different things. Even though it was a little awkward, it passed the time.

"I'm so sorry."

The non-sequitur took me by surprise. We hadn't spoken much to each other, but we had been in the middle of discussing Cade and the rest of my pokemon. Cade and I had learned the hard way that he was the only one of my pokemon who could see me. Gramps and May had taken the rest of my team.

"Why?" I scoffed. "Looks like stuff turned out just fine for you."

"Not really." Ash squished the marshmallow between chocolate and crackers. "You and I never really saw eye to eye, but you were supposed to have lived through that tauros thing." He squished the s'more a little more. "There wasn't even supposed to _be_ a tauros thing."

"Yeah?"

Ash nodded. "Yeah. And no matter what our personal differences were, you and I eventually grew to be friends again. Not like what it was when we were little. This was better." He looked over at me. "You became a phenomenal pokemon researcher. The best in the world."

"A researcher?" I snorted. "Not a chance."

"Well, not now, obviously," Ash studied the white goo slipping from the cracker mess. "But you were _supposed_ to be."

"So what happened to mess that up?"

"I'm not sure." Ash scarfed the s'more in one bite and mumbled something.

I glared at him. "You're the Chosen One? Really?"

Ash grinned broadly, revealing straight white teeth mostly free from s'more bits, and gave me the finger.

"Douche."

"That's the best you've got, Gary?"

"Hardly, but I figured I'd give an old guy like you a break." I leaned back with a smug grin. "Don't want you working your brain too much."

Instead of being flustered by my words, Ash's smile faded and looked regretful. "The more things change…"

"The more things _don't_ stay the same, Ash." I shook my head. "I think this whole fucked up mess I'm in proves that."

"Mmhmm, yeah." He seemed lost in thought, which was weird for me to see. I don't think I'd ever seen Ash look even the slightest bit contemplative. Angry, combative, protective, yeah. Not deep in thought.

I wasn't psychic. I couldn't even begin to guess what he was thinking, and I wasn't sure if I wanted to know or not. Still and all, my stomach clenched a bit at the thought that I wasn't supposed to die. Something between the moment the tauros gutted me and whatever future this Ash experienced had been changed. But how and by whom?

"That's what we gotta figure out," Ash said as he speared another marshmallow for roasting and toasting.

"Damnit, would you _**stop**_ reading my thoughts?!"

"Sure," he shrugged. "Just as soon as you stop swearing up a bluestreak."

"Not fucking likely."

"There you go then." Ash watched the marshmallow as it began to brown slowly. "I'll have to meet with some of the Legendaries. I'll go first thing in the morning."

"What good's that gonna do?" Though I appeared to be sitting on a boulder the size of a chair, I couldn't feel it beneath me. I could try to imagine the coolness of the smooth stone, but that was it. What I'd give to be able to feel _something_. "Even Celebi said she wouldn't go back in time and unkill me."

"True," Ash agreed, turning the stick so the marshmallow browned as evenly as possible. "But there are other Legendaries that not even you're aware of. And sometimes Legendaries leave small traces behind, especially when they alter something that they shouldn't have."

"Wait, you think a Legendary did this to me!?" Fury sparked inside.

Ash shrugged. "They're the only pokemon powerful enough to do that. No person in my time has the technology to go back in time to kill someone."

"What do you mean by traces?"

"Um, well, it's kind of like a fingerprint of power," Ash said. "Every pokemon, especially a Legendary pokemon, has a very unique signature to their powers. While Entei and Moltres both command fire, there's a difference to that fire. When it comes to time travel, there's a bit of fading that occurs to that signature based on how far back or forward the Legendary goes in time. But there's always something left behind."

As brilliant as my mind was, which was very, I couldn't keep up with what he was saying. I was guessing, but I didn't know if I'd be right. "You're saying there are Legendaries other than the birds and the dogs?"

"Yep," Ash squished the now golden brown marshmallow between chocolate and crackers. "And I'm currently thinking about two dragons who deal with time and space."

Two dragons, legendary dragons, who had power over time and space? I racked my brain but no names or images came to mind. "I've never heard of such pokemon."

"You wouldn't have. They had only revealed themselves to people about ten years after your untimely death." The rest of what he was going to say was buried under the demise of another s'more.

For a long while I sat there and thought. Memories of my life combined with the method of how I died. That it _shouldn't_ have happened…

"Never seen you so quiet."

My eyes flicked over to Ash, who was staring at me as if I'd grown a second head. The steady flickering of the fire's flames cast a golden red hue over everything in the area but me. "Find out who did this and kick their asses for me."

A grin spread over his face. "Gladly."

There was such a genuine conviction behind that one word that it had me wondering if what Ash had said about my should've been future was true.

Ash didn't reply and I could only guess that if he had heard me that he was respecting my privacy. It was another nod towards his insistence that he and I were friends in the future. I could mourn the loss of the maturity and camaraderie between us, but I focused instead on the important thing.

Figuring out who was behind my death, why they had done it, and how it could be set right.

_If_ it could be set right.

* * *

I decided to change updates to Sundays and Wednesdays. Please let me know if you see any errors!


	3. Chapter 3

Ghosts didn't need to sleep, but apparently Guardians did. Ash had fallen asleep about twenty minutes after that last s'more. He had, again with the powers, somehow manifested a small tent that had a sleeping bag and pillow inside. He insisted that he would wake up early, and declined my offer of a wakeup call.

Still, I watched over him (or his tent), Cade, and Celebi while they slept. Several pokemon wandered near, seemingly drawn by whatever internal beacon that Ash had as the Chosen One. When they wandered too close to his tent, I scared them off and soon enough any pokemon who attempted to catch sight of Ash's tent wouldn't come any closer than the trees that ringed the clearing. Apparently pokemon didn't like ghosts, even though I couldn't so much as touch them, much less make good on my threats.

And despite my doubts, there was rustling within the tent just before the sun even began to rise over the horizon. Ash stepped out a moment later, with hair mussed from sleeping, and stretched once clear of the tent's doorway. He rubbed at the back of his neck as the tent, and its contents, vanished without a sound.

"Convenient," I arched an eyebrow and smirked a little.

"Yeah," he flushed just a bit at my teasing. "Want some breakfas…Uh, sorry."

"Nice save."

"Heh," Ash grinned. "If he doesn't mind, I can whip up something for Cade."

I looked over at Cade, where he was still sleeping at the base of the tree, but with his back to us. "What about Celebi?"

The Legendary in question stirred from her branch berth and yawned. "I'll eat when I get to the office."

"The office?" I scowled at the petite pokemon. "_You_ have an office?"

"Not really," Celebi smiled cheekily. "I just don't trust _his_ cooking."

Ash looked wounded. "Celebi! I learned from Brock!"

"Often imitated, never duplicated," the spunky time-traveler piped up. Celebi went from teasing to serious in a heartbeat. "Chosen One, I and the others will meet you in an hour at the island."

"Tropical today, huh?" Ash sighed. "Okay, I'll be there."

Tropical islands? I shook my head. It was probably best that I not ask that question, not when I had another that was more profound.

Celebi left in a wink of light and suddenly I was alone with Ash and Cade. One ghost, one Chosen One, and one dark pokemon.

"What's your big question?" Ash asked unexpectedly.

"You probably already know it." I watched as he once again lit the fire and began pulling ingredients and supplies from nowhere.

"Yeah, but it's more normal for you to ask it versus me digging it out of your mind."

"As if anything about this is normal." But I asked him anyway. "How long are you here for?"

He paused in the middle of stirring whatever it was that was in the skillet he had. "A couple of days."

"A couple of days?" Admittedly, my hopes rose by a lot. "This could all be over in a couple of days?"

Ash poured the contents of the skillet onto a plate and suddenly the skillet and other tools vanished. He sat on the boulder I'd been sitting on last night and stared at the plate. I think he'd made an omelet, but wasn't sure. I couldn't smell anything and, since cooking hadn't been my strongest skill, I couldn't really identify the food by sight, though it looked egg-like.

When he still stared at the plate I got a bit worried. The Legendary pokemon would be pissed if I had broken their Chosen One. "Ash?"

He looked up, blinking, and sighed. "Sorry, Gary, I was…um…talking to Celebi. She said that I shouldn't say anything more."

"Why not!" I scoffed. "Too afraid of breaking the time space continuum?"

"No, she didn't want you getting your hopes up too high." He pushed his breakfast around on the plate with a fork and looked over at me. "You sure you don't want some of this?"

I glared at him.

"Ooooh, right, sorry," He looked thoroughly embarrassed which both pissed me off and concerned me. Had we been such good friends that he'd cooked for me before?!

Further awkward moments were broken by Cade stumbling to his feet. "What's an umbreon gotta do to get something to eat around here?!"

**xXxXx**

It was no surprise that Ash had made something for Cade to eat and then left. Poof. Vanished without a sound. What was surprising was that Cade had sucked up the food that Ash had cooked for him as if he hadn't eaten in a long time. It made me feel guilty. It would piss me off if Cade was neglecting his own health by keeping by my side.

Arceus himself knew I wasn't worth it.

As soon as I'd thought it, Cade's head had swiveled in my direction.

Aww crap. What's it with people and pokemon so easily reading my thoughts?

"If you think I'm sticking with you because I don't care about my well-being, then you don't know me." Red eyes flashed with indignation. "We're partners, not Trainer and Trained. If I was in your position, and you in mine, I have no doubt you would do the same for me."

"True," I agreed softly. "And if you weren't here, I don't know what would have become of me."

My umbreon shivered. "Let's not dwell on that. It's bad enough that you're dead."

Ever frank, which was his nature, the words hit me like sharpened tauros horns. I flinched at the reminder of my non-corporeal state.

"Stop it, okay? Have faith in the Chosen One." Cade sighed. "I do."

"Where did he go?" I changed the subject. "He said something about Celebi wanting him to meet her and the others on the island. Ash said something about tropical."

"Hnn…" Cade pondered my words. "Could be Shamouti."

"Shamouti?" I was surprised. "Why there?"

_:Cause it's where I learned about my whole Chosen One thing.:_ Ash's voice came out of nowhere. I looked around but didn't see him anywhere.

"Ash?"

"He probably won't answer you," Cade said. "That was him talking to you telepathically. He's still in that meeting with the Legendaries."

"Telepathy?"

"Yes, telepathy. As in mind to mind communication."

"I _know_ what telepathy is," I said dryly. "I just didn't think Ash was capable of it."

"Well he is."

I rolled my eyes. "So how did _you_ hear him? I thought telepathy was mind to mind. Not mind to many minds."

"He's the Chosen One," Cade said as if that explained everything. Then he grinned in a slight baring of pointy sharp teeth. "That and you're wrong. Telepaths can speak to as many minds as they want to."

"Why?" The thought of Ash telepathically talking to me was unnatural. It freaked me out.

"Probably to keep an eye on us," Cade did a few stretches. "If someone went out of their way to kill you, it's possible that they're aware that Ash is investigating."

"You mean they might come back?" I muttered disdainfully. "It's not like they can do anything else to me."

Cade did a little shrug. "They could permanently kill you."

"What? Why? I'm already dead!"

"But you're a spirit, a ghost," Cade said patiently. "There are ways to kill spirits. You humans even have a word for it."

Even though I was dead, and therefore had no blood to do so, my mind remembered the feeling of blanching. "Exorcism?" Horrified couldn't begin to explain how I felt. "What the hell is beyond being a ghost?"

"Nothing."

"Nothing?" I echoed my umbreon.

"Being erased from everything, eliminated completely, removed from the fabric of time and space, dead as a…"

"Okay, I _get_ it!" I snapped and ran a hand through my hair. "I…I…What the _hell_ am I supposed to do?" My words trailed off in a desperate sounding whisper that I couldn't control. Save for being killed by the Tauros, there had rarely been a time in my life when I didn't have power over any situation.

Cade looked uneasy. "I don't know."

**xXxXx**

We tried to plan for an attack, but when it came down to it, we didn't know where to begin. If the pokemon assassin tried to kill me again we didn't know _how_ the pokemon would do so.

And if one Legendary hated me enough to kill me and alter a future timeline, was there more than one Legendary who hated me? Was there some sort of Legendary club that hated Gary Oak? Why would they want to kill me at all? The thoughts made my mind spin and I ran through as many memories as I could to see if there was anything I'd done that would result in being the target of a Legendary pokemon. Yet nothing came to mind.

Distressing enough was the discovery that I had been forgetting things that had happened to me when I was alive. It was a bit of a relief that Cade seemed to be a walking backup of my memory, as he had been with me through everything from day one of my Training journey, but it was disturbing to think that I was forgetting things and didn't even know it.

There were a few gaps in my memory that even he couldn't fill in, but they were dismissed as inconsequential. The trip down memory lane was long and thorough, but it resulted in nothing that stood out as OMFG. Cade and I could only determine that something I'd done in the future had been offensive enough to warrant my death as a teenager.

But if Ash and I were friends in that future, how could anything I do be a death sentence? I knew that I had a somewhat arrogant personality, but if Ash himself was vouching for me, then my arrogance must've been somewhat diluted by the time I was an adult. Ash was the very definition of friendly and loyal. He wouldn't stick by me if I was an egotistical self-centered jerk.

Unless it was my very friendship with Ash that was the catalyst.

Blithely I wondered what happened as I had grown up to result in me and Ash being friends. True we had been friendly towards each other while growing up, before we went out on our Trainer's journeys, but I never thought we'd be so again. Training, and my own ego – let's be honest here – had put a rift between us. Sure we had been competitive, even as friends, but nothing similar to the heated arguments that cropped up whenever we happened to cross paths on our Training journeys.

Time passed as I was lost in my memories but I barely noticed. It was only when the shadows had vanished into darkness, and Cade returned from an experimental twilight hunting trip, that I realized that night was already here.

"He come back yet?" Cade asked as he sat next to me.

"Not once," I said as I rubbed behind his long ears. Though for all I knew Ash could've come and gone. I had been paying zero attention to my surroundings.

Cade leaned into the touch and sighed. It was equally reassuring to the both of us.

"Should he have been back by now?" I asked and felt a bit of concern. "He wouldn't just leave, would he? Like back to the future kind of leaving?"

"Without saying anything to us?" Cade shook his head. "Negative. He would say something."

The sun was way past being set, and Cade was asleep on my lap, when Ash returned. He appeared out of thin air and grinned down at the sight of my umbreon so sound asleep. Despite the amused expression, Ash looked tired. Offhandedly I wondered how much energy it took to teleport to the Orange Archipelago and back.

Probably a lot less than it took to go back in time.

"How did you get here from whatever time it was that you came from?" I blurted out the question as it formed in my mind.

Ash seemed surprised. He took a seat on the log he'd sat on last night and stared at the remains of the fire pit. Charred logswere instantly replaced with fresh tinder and within seconds a cheery fire blazed. "One of the Legendaries."

"Not Celebi, huh?"

"No," he shook his head. "It was Dialga."

"Dialga," The name sounded powerful. "Dragon of time?"

Ash nodded. "Yeah. Palkia manages space." He caught the odd look on my face. "Not outer space. Space as in dimensional rifts, stuff like that. It's really…deep."

"Uh-huh," I stared at him for a second. "What did you find out?"

"It was neither Dialga or Palkia," Ash said and set up a stand to place the skillet on in the center of the fire, which had reduced the size of its flames for cooking. It was good to be the Chosen One. "Beyond the obvious reasons of them letting me come back to find out why you va…died, they really have no interest in you. At least, not enough to kill you."

"Yeah?" I shrugged. "Well I'm glad I didn't piss off a pair of legendary dragons." Then what he said, how he corrected himself, caught my attention. "How did _you_ know I'd been killed off in the past?"

"Caught that, huh?" Ash said wryly as he dropped a hamburger patty on the hot skillet. It sizzled as Ash collected his thoughts. "You were in the middle of a lecture, in front of a couple of hundred people and pokemon, when you vanished."

"A lecture? I vanished at a _lecture_?" My voice conveyed my disbelief. "What?"

"Like I said," Ash said patiently. "You're a highly respected and renowned pokemon researcher. I don't want to plump your ego too much, but you're _the_ go to guy, Gary."

My jaw gaped a little before I snapped it shut. "Go on."

"You grabbed your stomach and…"

"You were there, too?"

"_Yes_," Ash said with some exasperation. "Can I continue? Preferably without interruptions."

I rolled my eyes, but said nothing.

"You got really pale and kind of staggered. You reached out to grab the podium, but you vanished before you even touched it." Ash frowned and I could tell by his expression that he wasn't lying about anything. "I wasn't affected by what happened and neither were any of the pokemon. I managed to tell every pokemon in the hall to not try to convince their humans of anything other than what they thought they knew."

"But what happened? What are you talking about? Besides me vanishing."

"Everything changed in the lecture hall. The keynote speaker, which had been you, changed to Professor Cypress, who lives in the Orange Archipelago. He's good, but he's nowhere near as good as you."

I smirked. "Of course not."

"I mean it, Gary," Ash said seriously. "You weren't _just_ a researcher. You're also responsible for a couple of key inventions that revolutionized the pokemon world."

My smirk faded. "What?"

"I can't tell you about them…"

"Course not."

"I don't _need_ to. They're yours and they'd happen if I told you about them or not," Ash said firmly. "But if you don't exist, _they_ don't exist, and…they've done a lot of good, Gary. Nothing horrible happens if they aren't invented, but it's a big hit to technology if they aren't invented. What you invented advanced the Training world."

My mind was whirling at the thought. There had been a few things that I'd discovered through my journeys that I wished were available to Trainers but weren't. Could those…

"Holy Lugia…" I breathed out and stared at Ash. "You _have_ to unkill me."

"Getting there," Ash smirked this time. "We think we've narrowed down the prospects, and really it comes to just a couple of Legendaries."

"Who?"

Ash sighed, as if he didn't want to say anything.

"What's the catch, Ash?"

"No catch," he replied, but still seemed hesitant. "But you might not be familiar with either of them."

"Who?!"

"Ho-oh…"

"Big fluffy bird."

Ash sucked in a breath. "_Don't_ let her catch you calling her that! She'll kill you…slowly."

I arched an eyebrow.

Ash rolled his eyes. "Okay, right, I forgot."

"_**How**_?!"

"You just seem so…solid to me. I dunno."

"Okay, whatever. Who else?"

"This is the name you really shouldn't know, but he is a Legendary…kind of." Ash paused, then said, "Mewtwo."

"Mew what?"

"Mewtwo," Ash said. "He's kind of a clone of Mew."

Being the awesome pokemon Trainer that I was, I knew of Mew. It helped that Gramps researched that particular pokemon, and that I snuck a look into his notes, but I knew of Mew. Short, pink, hovers everywhere, and utters cute high pitched "mews" just like a kitten.

I looked over at Ash. "How did I piss off a giant bird or a tiny pink cat?"

Ash looked really surprised. "No, Gary, Mewtwo is hardly tiny or pink."

"You said it's a clone…"

"Well, yeah, kind of. I mean, the scientists did some weird experiment and…Well I don't really know what they did but…" Ash stuttered, paused, and recollected his thoughts. "He's big, Gary, _really_ tall."

"Tall?"

"Like six feet tall, stands on his hind legs, and has really powerful psychic abilities." Ash shrugged. "Giovanni used to have him in his gym for a while. Then Mewtwo escaped and, well, things weren't pretty."

"I never heard of any of this," I said dubiously. "How is that possible? Gramps knows everything about pokemon. He's never talked about Mewtwo."

"Mewtwo is a _really_ powerful psychic."

"So, we've only said his name a lot. How is he not here blasting us to bits if he's the bad guy?"

Ash looked uncomfortable. "I've been shielding us. Kind of not letting thoughts or words get out of this immediate area."

"And he's more powerful than you?"

"Er…technically _every_ pokemon is supposed to obey me, regardless of power or what level they are. You know how badges give you power over certain levels of pokemon?"

"Yeah, though I never understood how that reverts itself with each new region you go to," I scowled. "That should be a cross-region thing."

"I never understood that either," Ash frowned, then shook his head. "So being that I'm the Grand Master and the Chosen One, I kind of have a failsafe to the Grand Master 'All pokemon obey me' thing, and that's being the Chosen One."

"Wait," I held out a hand to shut him up. It worked. I lowered my hand and frowned. "Okay, we'll save the Grand Master thing for later. How are all pokemon obeying you now, when they didn't when I died?"

"Cade already told you. I wasn't fully into all of my powers, just a few of them. The important ones, like pokemon obeying me, weren't developed yet." Ash grimaced. "Though I really wish they had. We could skip all of this so easily."

"All of what?"

"I'm going to see Ho-oh tomorrow and ask her a few questions."

"Won't she be expecting you?" I asked, randomly stroking Cade's back. "And if she is, wouldn't she lie to you if she did kill me?"

"She won't lie," Ash said confidently. "She can't. No pokemon can lie to the Chosen One."

"Mighty full of yourself, Ashy boy." I said smugly. "A big ego does not suit you."

"And being humble doesn't suit _you_," Ash retorted with a grin. It faded fast, replaced by seriousness. "Mewtwo will be difficult. I worry that if I do ask him, and he _did_ kill you, that he'll know that his work isn't finished."

"Won't he know regardless?" I prompted. "You're here, in the past, talking to a ghost. That might count as suspicious to a pokemon guilty of murder."

Ash nodded. "Good point."

"Got any backup plans?"

He shook his head. "Nope."

I winced. "Good to see you haven't changed, Ash."

**xXxXx**

I should've mentioned this before but I forgot to. This story is set after the second movie featuring Shamuti Island. Well, um, the parts _after_ Gary's death.


	4. Chapter 4

Slight author's note. More like a head's up. Something.

Guest: I'm glad you like it! Hopefully you'll enjoy the rest.

Damn It: I don't really do shippings. I never really got it. As I wrote this story, it only has hints of egoshipping. Yes (sigh) I actually had to look up egoshipping to see what it was. What kind of romance is your preference?

Killthief99: I like writing freaky. I've been on here for a while and I definitely like writing freaky.

Yes, very much an au. I probably should've mentioned that. Yep, a legendary has definite beef with Gary. You'll see who that is in this chapter.

Enjoy!

**xXxXx**

Sleep was a short time coming for my companions. Meaning they fell asleep pretty fast. For the first time in a while, I wished that I could fall asleep. Instead I sat beside Cade and leaned against the tree, content with watching him sleeping and watching out for any dangers. Despite how worried he was for me, I was more worried for him. If he died, I had no doubt that he'd be whisked away to whatever paradise that it was that pokemon looked forward to. He wouldn't be stuck here like I was.

But me…for some reason, I'd pissed off a Legendary pokemon and it had been out for my blood enough to have succeeded in killing me. Plus there was the possibility that it would be back to kill me a second time.

Sometimes it did _not_ pay to get out of bed in the morning. Figuratively speaking, of course.

Just then a few of the bushes on the other side of the clearing rustled. I tensed and waited, wondering if I'd need to wake up Ash. Then it sort of dawned on me that I was about to wake up my rival, who was currently an adult, to save me and Cade from some unknown creature or person, with his magical powers.

This whole situation really sucked.

However, when the bushes parted, a lone stantler strode through. When the buck saw the tent Ash was in, the animal stopped. Took in the very low burning campfire, snorted, and walked back the way it had come.

I let out a breath I hadn't been aware I'd been holding in. Yeah, forget the fact that I didn't need to breathe; it was a habit I hadn't broken free of yet. I relaxed and settled back down.

The rest of the night was a tedious affair. A few more pokemon walked through, but there were less than there had been last night. Either word of me being there was keeping the pokemon away, or Ash himself had sent out some kind of request. I was betting that it was Ash having said something. A) I wasn't exactly a scary ghost and B) these pokemon have more than likely faced scarier things than lil old dead me.

The sun's rays were peeking over the horizon when Ash walked out of the tent. Once again, the tent vanished into thin air, and I inwardly admitted that it was a fascinating and very helpful way to travel. I had a feeling that maybe the tent was a little larger on the inside than the outside let on.

Ash's hair was damp, as if he'd taken a shower, and he looked more refreshed than before he'd gone in for sleep. Yeah. The tent definitely had to have some weird qualities to it.

Once again, he set up a cooking stand within the center of the fire pit. He lit a new set of logs ablaze with his powers and settled down on the only log he hadn't tried to use as firewood.

It was then that I noticed that Pikachu hadn't been around at all and, belatedly, I realized that if this Ash was from the future, at least twenty or so years, then his Pikachu was most likely dead. In his time, anyway. Would asking him dredge up any bad memories?

"Not really." Ash's voice was quiet, a bit pensive.

"So you heard me then, too?"

"Yep," Ash stoked the fire with a long stick. He settled on his log and then looked over at me. "She died, for me, about ten years ago. Old age."

"Sorry."

Ash shrugged. "She had a good long life. Not long enough for me, obviously, but she had many a litter of little 'chus. Her bloodline lives on."

"Didn't bring anyone with you though." Ergo I am the Master of All that is Obvious.

Ash rubbed at his right shoulder, almost absently. "Nah. Didn't want to risk any danger in bringing one of them back with me."

"Nnhn," was all I muttered, though my mind was thinking deeply. No matter how blasé this Ash seemed to me, and no matter how little I interacted with the Ash of my time, it felt very off to not see Pikachu perched on his shoulder or trailing behind him.

"When are you going to see Ho-oh?" I asked quietly to change the subject. "And…what are you gonna ask her?"

For a moment, Ash said nothing and merely stirred a couple of eggs that he had dropped into the pan, sans shells. It was Ash cooking, true, but he seemed to realize that shells weren't food. Even I knew that Ash sucked at cooking. This time it looked like he was aiming for scrambled eggs. "I'm not sure."

"What?!" I was flabbergasted, and then I sighed and felt a bit angry. "You don't _know_?"

"Not off hand," he muttered. "The Ho-oh I know is a kind and easy going pokemon. I really can't see her doing anything to any human. Even you."

"Yeah, great," I rolled my eyes. "Even me. Thanks for making me sound like I'm a horrible person."

Ash looked genuinely horrified. "I…I didn't mean it like that! By the time you're in your mid-twenties you've mellowed out a ton and you're already better at being a researcher than your Gramps is."

"Oh _really_?" I arched an eyebrow.

He winced. "You weren't supposed to know that."

"Like it really matters?"

"I'm gonna get a headache if I think about this too much," Ash sighed but shrugged. "What the hell. If I can fix this, you won't have died and you won't even remember this conversation anyway."

"Great," I smirked, though the thought of not remembering being a ghost, not remembering all these difficult times with Cade, somehow made me uneasy. "So what was _supposed_ to happen with me?"

Ash poured the scrambled eggs, which looked fluffy and pretty good by the way, onto a plate. The skillet and cooking stand vanished when Ash put the skillet back onto the stand.

"Nice trick," I nodded towards the fire. "Must make camping a dream."

"Like you wouldn't believe."

"So, back to me…"

"Right," Ash's breakfast was still too hot to eat, so he sat back on his log. "Well, after you grew out of your selfish me me me phase…"

"Hey! That is _not_ a phase!"

Ash rolled his eyes. "After you grew up, a _little_, you enrolled in the Researcher Academy on South Mandarin island in the Orange Archipelago. You blazed through with A's in everything, graduated top of your class and valedictorian, and went on to intern in Silph Co's research and development department. You outgrew that and blazed your own trail, much like your grandfather did, but multiply that success by about ten. You gave lectures and wrote books in your spare time and volunteered for several universities and academies world wide." He shrugged again. "You were kinda the shit, so far as researching pokemon went."

"And one day I went poof and everything changed?"

"Pretty much." Ash took the next five seconds to scarf down the eggs.

"And have I ever researched the rate of speed by which you eat things?"

"Nope," Ash wiped at his mouth with the hem of his shirt. "But you've threatened to, numerous times."

"Uh huh." I eyed his plate, which vanished before my eyes. "That's all you're eating?"

"Hey!" Ash said huffily. "I'll have you know I've been watching my figure. I don't eat everything in sight."

A snort escaped me, followed by a chuckle. "I can really almost believe we're friends in your future."

"We are," Ash's grin faded and he sighed deeply. "I'll fix it, Gary, I promise."

"Don't make promises you can't keep."

"I make it a point to never do that."

I nodded, feeling the conviction in his words, but my next words were a little snarky. "I might just believe you."

C'mon, I couldn't sound _too_ friendly towards my rival.

Right?

**xXxXx**

Once again, Ash left soon after he had finished eating. Cade hadn't even woken up yet, but did so the second that Ash had left. He whined a bit, saying that now he'd have to hunt his own breakfast.

"You're sure that he didn't make me anything?" Cade whimpered pitifully at my feet.

This time it was my turn to sit on the log that Ash had been using. Cade was sitting next to my feet, leaning against my left leg. "I'm sure," I pushed him away a bit. "Stop whining like you're a pup!" I shook my head. "Is it really that hard to catch something to eat?"

"You try it!" Cade mock snarled.

"No thanks," I said with a little shudder. "My version of fast food isn't your version of fast food."

"What if they can't bring you back as you?" Cade asked bluntly.

Geeze, talk about coming out of left field. I frowned. "What are you talking about?"

"Well, um, what if they can't rewind time and unkill you?" My umbreon managed to look uneasy and sheepish all at once. "But what if they can give you a chance at another life?"

Once I realized what he meant, his words worried me. "You mean like reincarnation?"

He nodded.

"I…I don't know."

Cade sighed deeply. "The great Gary Oak, for once at a loss for words, and me with no way to record this moment in time."

I rolled my eyes, wishing I had something to throw at him. "Even if that was my only option, I'm not sure I'd take it. I like being me. I don't…I don't want to lose _who_ I am."

"What if you were still, you know, you?"

"You've put a lot of thought into this, haven't you?" I pinned him with a fixed stare, and at his nod I sighed. "Cade, I know you're hurting, buddy. I am, too. I'm guessing you weren't thinking of me being brought back as a human, huh?"

Another nod, this one a little reserved. "You call me little brother. I think of you similarly." He paused and continued. "When you were killed, I felt…worthless. I have all of this power and yet I couldn't save the one human who means the world to me."

The sorrow in his words were like a slap to the face. I'd been so deep in my own grief that I hadn't considered his. Or any of my pokemon. My world class champion team was…gone. Cade was the only one who could see me, the only one who knew I was still here in this in-between. None of the others had believed him, and some had turned on him, angrily so.

Not knowing what to say, I simply let him continue.

"So…if they couldn't unkill you…it…it would be…" Cade, at first my most loyal pokemon, and now my candid and most trusted friend, was at a loss for words.

"Cade…"

"Let me finish!" He snapped and let out a little growl. "Gary, it just about killed me to know that you died. And…and I _tried_ to stop it, but I was _too __**late**_..." Cade trailed off with a little whine that conveyed his sorrow and helplessness.

My poor Cade. He had gotten himself hurt trying to save me, though he hadn't known that I was already almost dead by the time he could even try to help.

"And if it was within their power to grant you a second life, I would…I would hope that you might take that and…" He hesitated before finishing. "And I would guard you better than before." When he spoke next, he almost sounded self-conscious and the last two words came out almost at a whisper. "I would help raise you."

"You mean if I were a pokemon?"

Silently, he nodded.

My thoughts were spinning once again at his confession. It was a hell of a thing to think about, much less to admit, and I admired Cade's conviction and courage. It was one thing to think about such a thing. It was something else entirely to speak it.

But how to answer him? I wasn't psychic, but it didn't take a psychic to sense the swirling mix of fear, anticipation, and sorrow that came from my umbreon. He'd been my starter and I knew him as well as he knew me.

"I suppose that if there's no real way that they can undo what happened to me," I paused and shrugged. "I guess what you say makes sense."

Ears that had been draped across his back with his sorrow perked up and his eyes widened with shock. "W…what?!"

With a smirk, I nodded. "You make a valid point."

Cade was always a reserved pokemon who trained hard and battled even harder. Since I'd been dead, I'd found out that his attitude matched in the words he spoke, and he made such frank and unabashed comments that it made me wish I'd have been able to understand him when I was alive. But for once he seemed at a loss for words and his body language conveyed the same thing.

The smugness I'd initially felt faded. "What? You're not happy with my answer? Should I have said no thanks?"

"N…no," he stammered. "I just can't believe you'd agree. I didn't think you would."

"You're my best friend, Cade, my little brother," I teased him. "Of course I'd say yes."

"He might not have to," a tired sounding voice broke into our little conversation. "Because I might have found who killed you."

**xXxXx**

Ash didn't return to us with good news. In fact, the news he brought pretty much sucked.

A lot.

It turned out that my killer wasn't Ho-oh at all. While Ash had had his doubts about it being Ho-oh, she really had been one of the few that _might_ have been my killer. It seemed that Ho-oh had not only _**not**_ been the one to kill me, she had been a little offended, and a tad bit hurt, that she'd been in the running as a potential candidate.

To give her props, and I was, she didn't lash out at having been considered a murder suspect.

Huzzah!

The bad news that Ash had brought back with him was that the killer was, indeed, suspect number two.

Mewtwo wasn't offended by Ash questioning him about my death. He wasn't even surprised to see a grown Ash, as opposed to little Ash, being the one to question him. He was surprised to know that I was still hanging around, as it were, which had led to a quick little skirmish regarding Ash and his abilities as the Chosen One and Grand Master.

Male dominance/alpha male kind of thing, I guess.

Oh, but it gets better. Even though Ash pwned Mewtwo, Mewtwo gave as good as he got. Ash got himself knocked around as much as he had roughed up Mewtwo, and the Pride of Pallet was actually bleeding in a few areas. Nothing that required a trip to the emergency room, but blood is blood.

Seeing any amount of blood brought back bad memories for me, naturally.

"Gary," Ash's voice, even with an undercurrent of weariness, rang sharply in the clearing. "He's coming _here_."

"I know," I said, hating how weak and defeated I sounded. No, I didn't really _know_ but it was a safe presumption that the pokemon _would_ follow Ash here. I wasn't sure if I should be pissed at Ash, or scared shitless that the pokemon was coming here.

The thought of my murderer coming here sent chills running through me. The relative safety of the clearing suddenly and unexpectedly held a tint of danger to it. There was no place for me to hide.

Something in my voice made Ash flinch a little. When he spoke next, it was softer. "I can send you to a safer place, if you want."

"No," I snorted and looked up at him with a smirk. "I'm facing this bastard with you."

"And with me," Cade looked up at me with a fierce glint in his ruby eyes. "He won't get you again, boss."

Ash nodded and a grin flickered over his dirt smudged face. "Together."

"Oh, now isn't this sweet?" A new voice broke into our powwow. "Is it too late to be singing Kumbayah or am I just in time?"

**xXxXx**

I want to say that I remained brave and badass. I want to say that I didn't shriek like a terrified preteen girl.

But those would be lies.

At the very moment that Mewtwo spoke, I might have uttered a sound I _never_ wanted to repeat in life or in death. I certainly felt like all the blood had drained from my face. My body might have been six feet under and neatly contained in an overpriced rosewood box, but my mind (or whatever passed for a mind) remembered how to react to intense and devastating fear.

The feeling of fainting, which of course I've _never_ done, was overwhelming. Sensations of lightheadedness and dizziness swamped me, and it was only Cade leaning against my leg that stabilized me. He was my rock, my one true constant throughout this fiasco.

Yet, Mewtwo did not speak out loud. He did not open his mouth to speak. He used his _mind_. And somehow, when he did speak, it was to all of us as if he actually was speaking like we do. Even though he spoke telepathically, it felt to me as if he spoke out loud. For a killer pokemon, his voice was deep and smooth and almost pleasant to listen to.

Almost.

Hearing Ash's description of Mewtwo had been one thing. It was quite another to see the pokemon in person. He exuded a feeling of raw power and it sent chills racing up and down my spine. If I had been alive, the hairs would've risen on the back of my neck and goosebumps would've been on my arms.

Of course I'd been around tall, bipedal pokemon before. With the research my Gramps did, I had been around all sorts of pokemon. This was the first that I actually feared and with good reason.

He had killed me, after all.

"It is true that I killed you, Gary Oak," the huge purple pokemon's eyes fixated directly upon mine, and the weight of his gaze had me averting my own. I chose to stare at Ash and then Cade.

Mewtwo spoke on and his voice grated on my nerves. It wasn't a bad voice, don't get me wrong. It was deep and cultured and held a dry wit that I'm sure was a hit at parties.

But he _killed_ me!

"I killed you out of spite and out of revenge," the voice droned on. There was a note of resignation mixed with admittance and, even, satisfaction. There was no remorse. "I killed you after I could stand it no longer. I waited patiently, to see if I could relinquish the need to seek revenge against you." A slight pause. "I could not."

"What did _he_ ever do to _you_?!" Cade barked out angrily. The fur bristled along his back and I rubbed at one of his long ears to reassure him.

"You made _me __**bleed**_."

"That's impossible!" I snorted out in disbelief. "I've never met you! I'd remember meeting you."

"I could agree with you if that were the truth of it." Mewtwo sniffed haughtily. "I have met many humans and made them forget." At this, he smiled coldly. "Simply because I _**can**_make them forget."

"So…we met and you made me forget?" I frowned. "And you killed me for something I couldn't remember?"

"We met but I did not make you forget anything."

Helpless, I looked over at Ash. "I don't remember this pokemon!"

"Giovanni." The single word that Mewtwo uttered rang like a challenge and the angry glint in Mewtwo's eyes was very accusing.

But still I couldn't _remember_. Was this a side-effect of being dead? I knew I'd been forgetting some stuff, but this was really fucking important! This pokemon was accusing me of meeting him, _hurting_ him, and not remembering any of it.

"You were at Giovanni's gym in Viridian City," Ash said to Mewtwo. "And he had you fight challengers to the gym."

"_Yes_," the word was hissed out.

"But I can't remember…"

"Then let me help you out!" Mewtwo snarled and before I could even think on what his words meant there was a vivid glow from his eyes. The glow felt like it struck me and suddenly flashes of images flooded through my mind at lightning speed.

The gym, Arcanine, me barking out orders…

Why was the gym so dark?!

Then a pokemon, strange and walking on two legs, wearing the dumbest looking helmet…

Flashes of light and then…

Then Ash was there being concerned about me and…

"I didn't realize that Arcanine had even touched you."

Mewtwo chuckled and it was one of the scariest things I'd ever heard. It was low and mirthless. "Yes. He _did_."

The images vanished from my mind and my surroundings were that of the clearing we were all in. I sank onto the grass, a little into the dirt, and Cade was there to reassure me. My fingers clenched in his silky fur and if I gripped a little too tightly, he didn't complain.

Ash was also quiet, sitting on his log, but I could sense little things about him that told me he was on the edge of some kind of battle ready mode. He would do something if Mewtwo made even the smallest threatening movement.

"Let me get this right," I said, thinking as I spoke. "My Arcanine hurt you somehow in the gym battle, which was a battle that made me pass out, and you decide to get revenge by _killing_ me? That doesn't even make the slightest bit of sense!"

"I wanted to return the favor," the pokemon said smoothly. "An eye for an eye, as you humans are so very fond of saying."

"You _**killed**_ me!"

"I merely meant to scare some respect into you."

My eyes widened. "_Seriously_? Because I didn't kill you!"

Mewtwo sighed. "Regrettably, things got a little out of hand."

"A _little_?"

Cade nosed my hand with his muzzle. "Calm it down a bit, boss."

My irritation lessened a fraction.

As in not much at all.

Pretty much, I was dumbfounded. "You killed me over a scratch! And instead of going to me to…to deal with it, you went back in time to teach me a lesson?!"

"Your kind are more impressionable in the adolescent stages of life." Mewtwo was most unhelpful. He then muttered, "And it wasn't a scratch. There was a cut. It took a week to heal."

Ash must've been filled with all kinds of quiet anger. When he spoke, it was calm but laced with fury. "Plus I'd have kicked your ass to Arceus for trying to hurt him." He paused, then clarified,

"You being the grown version, Gary."

"Uh, yeah…'course."

Mewtwo was unruffled. "I am human created, Chosen One. Your pretty little threats have no sway over me."

"That's true, Mewtwo, but I just kicked your ass, so I think I can back up my pretty little threats."

"What I don't understand," I fixed Mewtwo with a glare. "Is how you're here, now, talking about things in the future. Did you travel back in time?"

Mewtwo shook his head. "Unnecessary. I do not need to travel back in time. I can easily communicate with my future and past selves by means of telepathy with my present self."

"Huh?"

"It is a concept far above your abilities of consideration," Mewtwo said it slowly.

Ash spoke up. "Don't try to figure it out, Gary. You'll just get a migraine." He shrugged. "And, you know, I doubt there's any ghostly aspirin."

"For what it's worth," Mewtwo said. "I _am_ sorry that I was a little…excessive, and..."

"A little?"

Again, he spoke as if I hadn't interrupted him. "This can be adjusted."

"How?" This time it was Cade who spoke and he sounded as interested as I felt.

"The same way that I initiated this. I will send a message to my past self to not agitate and redirect the tauros' aggression." He paused. "Or we could skip all of that and instead you may be reborn."

"Reborn…"

"You humans call it reincarnation," Mewtwo explained. "We pokemon call it a rebirth."

Cade's earlier hopeful words flew through my mind. I fought to keep them in line and failed. "Reborn? I don't…I…"

"Come now," Mewtwo said drolly. "Your umbreon has sufficiently voiced these options to you already. But you must chose wisely, for there are no refunds and no returns."

The fact that Mewtwo just cracked a sad little joke wasn't lost on me, but his words sent shockwaves to the core of my being.

To hear Cade having brought the subject of coming back to life, through turning back time was one thing. To hear Cade offering the option of being reincarnated was quite another. But to hear Mewtwo voicing the very same options was vastly different. It made those options real and…

It sent ripples of unease through me.

"So what's to say you won't change your mind?" I said skeptically. "Or that you'll just permanently kill me once and for all? How can you prove to me that you won't decide that you'd rather just have me dead and go back on your word?"

Mewtwo cocked his head in a vaguely birdlike manner. "You are right to question my intents, human. I have little love for your species and _very_ little love for you, personally. However, once my word is given, it is unbreakable. I will honor it for eternity."

"So if I chose to be myself, all alive and such, or if I chose to be reborn, you won't kill me again?"

"That is correct." A pause. "And I _am_ sorry for having indirectly killed you. I merely meant to scare you a little."

"Uh huh…" I blinked away how odd this conversation was.

A ghost, a pokemon, and a chosen one walk into a bar…

I looked over to Ash, but the wise Chosen One shrugged.

"I can't make up your mind for you, Gary."

My jaw tightened.

"But I do know that I'd miss you if you decided to reincarnate." Ash shrugged again. "Plus you end up doing a lot of good things. Helpful things."

I couldn't help it. I felt a weird strangling feeling that had nothing to do with actual strangling and all to do with me not being able to think. "Ash…I…"

"You should think about it," Cade said softly, though I could damned well sense what he'd want me to chose. "Don't just pick."

My fingers found the fur on his back, stroked it, and I _thought_. Could I live being a pokemon? Having someone stroking the fur on my back? Fighting side by side with a human, knowing I was once a human as well? How long would I live as a pokemon? Who would train me? What if the training methods killed me?

Then again, being human meant that there was a very good chance I'd live well into my forties, and that I'd be a world famous researcher and inventor. I could help a lot of people and pokemon. I'd be rich and popular and…and friends with _Ash_, of all people.

"I have to think this over," I said softly. "I need…I need time."

"You have twenty four hours," Mewtwo said bluntly. "After that, I do not care what happens to you. If you do not pick by then, you remain as you are. I will not come after you and kill you a second time." He looked disgusted. "I would not do that to any being or entity, no matter how much they angered me."

"Thank you," Ash said to the pokemon.

Mewtwo gave an elegant roll of his shoulders. His version of a shrug. "I do not find pleasure in torturing Gary Oak. He injured me, indirectly, and I killed him, indirectly. The debt has been repaid."

Oh, indirectly, of course, but_ he still killed me_.

**xXxXx**

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	5. Chapter 5

**Author's Note/Warning: Mentions of gore and blood lie ahead. If you don't like that, you might want to skip through sections of this chapter.**

xXxXx

Mewtwo left after that, with a promise to return in exactly twenty four hours. He reminded me of a robot, all precise and punctual. Not to mention unemotional.

A campfire danced merrily and marshmallows were roasting side by side with hot dogs. The fire crackled and sparks drifted above the flames and into the dark of night. I was sitting on the boulder and Cade was sleeping on my lap. Ash was, as ever, sitting on his log.

"What I don't get," I said as I stared into the fire. "Is why he waited so long to get his revenge."

"Mmm," Ash poked the fire with a slender branch. More sparks flew into the night. "Pokemon like Mewtwo are kinda long lived. So, I guess time is sort of inconsistent to him."

"Long lived?"

"Yeah, he's a clone of Mew, and she's pretty much ancient," Ash mused, then looked over at me with a grin. "Just don't tell her I said that. She's touchy about her age."

"Typical chick," I muttered and rubbed Cade between his ears. He snored softly in his sleep.

"That either," Ash said as a friendly warning. "Or else you might find _yourself_ being a chick."

I rolled my eyes then sighed. He reminded me of my hefty decision. "What would you pick?"

Ash smooshed a s'more together. "You mean if I was in your shoes?"

"No, I meant should we order pizza or Chinese." I glared at him. "Of course this, you idiot."

Though he looked thoroughly tempted between the two food choices, he grinned. "I dunno."

"The hell?" I shook my head. "What does _that_ mean?"

"It means I dunno." Down the s'more went to meet its doom in Ash's stomach. Because, you know, Ash doesn't chew.

"You're the Chosen One _and_ the Grand Master," I sighed. "What's there to think about?"

Mouth cleared, mostly, of s'more remains, Ash looked thoughtful. "Well, you could have time rewound and you could be _alive_ again. You wouldn't remember any of this after death stuff. You could save a lot on therapy."

I rolled my eyes again.

"Or," he licked his fingers free of marshmallow bits, "you could be reborn."

"But why as a pokemon?" I asked. "Why not a human?"

Ash shrugged. "That's just how it works."

"Huh." And maybe he was right. My body _was_ pretty messed up, after all.

"Mewtwo said you could pick whatever pokemon you want."

Before he had left, the tall psychic had said just that. Also that I could pick my trainer.

"May would be a good trainer," I said slowly. "But…"

"Hmm?"

"But she doesn't like training actively," I shrugged. "I'd probably get real bored. Gramps wouldn't be a big help. He just studies them."

There was a vastly uneasy pause.

"You could go with me."

"Future you," I ventured hesitantly. "Or now you?" There would be advantages to grown Ash. Fully into his powers, with years of experience training pokemon, not to mention a cushy lifestyle.

"Now me."

I exhaled softly. "I…I don't know." I rubbed Cade's soft fur and nodded down at the sleeping pokemon. "He would follow me either way. He's already said so."

Ash remained silent.

"I hate to let him down…but…"

"It's a tough decision." Ash downed a hot dog. A moment passed. "I would take him as well. In your honor."

I stared at the fire. "You wouldn't know it was me."

"I wouldn't know then…er…now…" He chuckled. "I'd know in my present. Your future."

The flames enchanted me.

"Gary, I'd _know_."

"Yeah, eventually," I looked over at him. "But until then, if I made it until then, all that time, you'd look me in the eyes and see a pokemon." I looked back at Cade, at how the warm fire glow shimmered on his fur. "And I'd know I was human."

"You could forget that," Ash said quietly.

"No," I said firmly. "I know one thing and I do _**not**_ want to forget."

He smiled. "Good."

I sighed. "Go get some sleep, Ash. You look like shit warmed over."

The last hot dog vanished. "You don't look too hot yourself, Gary."

"You wish, Ketchum." I smirked at him. "You know all the ladies love me."

The returning smirk somehow managed to not look out of place on Ash's face. "You wish."

xXxXx

A part of me couldn't believe that this grown up Ash had only been here for, what, three days? It felt like forever. Once again I was watching over the campsite. The fire had been banked, Ash's tent was up, and for once Cade had apologetically slipped into the tent with Ash.

He had looked at me with guilt in his eyes, but I shooed him on. According to Ash, it was cooler tonight than last night. The wind had picked up with random gusts, indicating a shift in the weather. A cold front, maybe, not that I'd know. Wind did not affect me, and I couldn't feel if it was cold or not. Cooler, yes, but extreme drops or raises in temperature were not mine to sense. All I knew was that if Cade could be sheltered out of the wind, that was where I wanted him. Besides…maybe he'd have to get used to being around Ash.

And maybe not.

Due to the random wind gusts the forest's pokemon had bedded down. No one ventured to the site to visit Ash. Not even to get a glimpse of his tent.

With Ash having found Mewtwo to be my killer, and with Mewtwo giving me a grace period in which to chose my own fate, I could at least relax in knowing that I wasn't going to be killed a second time. I wasn't on pins and needles at every little forest noise. I didn't dread any approaching pokemon.

It was almost nice.

Except that with my monumental decision, time crept very, very slowly.

Do I let myself be unkilled via Mewtwo's method? I wouldn't have to save Ash at all, if what Mewtwo hinted at was to be trusted. The tauros would never come near us because it wouldn't see us as a threat. I'd battle with Ash, win, and walk away. I'd continue on with my journey, live my life, and be a successful researcher. I wouldn't know of my close call.

My death wouldn't exist. I wouldn't give May and Gramps this world of hurt and pain. They wouldn't have to identify my body in the morgue.

But if I remained dead to the human world…

If I chose to be reborn as a pokemon…

_Cade, I called you little brother. If I chose this, then I would __**be**__ your little brother._ What would my life be like? Would I survive? There were all sorts of ways to die that didn't include Mewtwo's paw in things. I could be hit by a car or killed (again) by a random pokemon. A battle could go wrong, especially battles that are on the road where my trainer would be randomly challenged by another traveling trainer. Poison, energy blasts, dismemberment, drowning…

And what pokemon would I chose? I know Cade would want me to be like him, or at least a glaceon, leafeon, just an eon. But would it be a better choice to be something else? Something that could protect Cade, were he not able to defend himself. A dragon, maybe, or a fighter, or a runner.

Something bigger that could protect an umberon.

This would be the biggest decision I'd ever make, dead or alive. It would probably fry my brain. I just knew it.

Choice number three, my forfeit if I couldn't make up my mind, would be to remain as dead as I am. May and Gramps would never know of Ash coming back in time. Never know that it was Mewtwo who killed me. Never know that I would someday surpass him as a researcher.

Friend to Ash Ketchum.

Ash, the Chosen One and Grand Master. I frowned at that. I still hadn't asked him how he achieved _that_ status.

Ah, well. There's always tomorrow.

xXxXx

Okay, would it be surprising that, when the sun finally began to rise, that I still hadn't come to a decision?

Because I hadn't.

I was starting to feel like I was cramming all night for a huge test and remembering nothing that I'd studied.

Cade bounded out of the tent, looking more refreshed than I'd seen him look in…in a really long time. There was a spring to his step and his eyes glistened with health. His fur gleamed in the sunlight and the sun's rays darned near bounced off of his gold bands.

"Did you….did you get a bath?" I was really confused, but there was zero dirt or grime on my umbreon. "Because you're pretty much sparkling."

"Oh, uh…" Cade almost looked bashful. He ducked his head a little. "Yeah, um, Ash's tent is like a whole freaking house in there. It's the weirdest thing I've ever seen."

"A house?" I arched an eyebrow in slight disbelief, though I'd had my own questions about the tent.

"Yeah…" He looked around, seemed to want to say something, didn't, and bounded to my side. "So, um, did you think about…it?"

The corners of my mouth quirked in a grin. "Yes, I did."

"And?"

His single worded question came out too fast, too eager. I felt he wouldn't like my answer.

"You gotta wait until tonight."

"Whaaa?!" His ears fell flat against his back and his jaw dropped. He shut it with a snap of sharp teeth. "That's not fair, boss! I deserve to know! Now!"

I tsked him. "That attitude is one reason why I'm not telling you my decision. Plus…" I hesitated. "I'm not sure what I want just yet."

"You had _all night_!" Cade whined like a pup. "How could you not know yet?"

My sigh was deep. "I don't know. I just…need a little more time." I saw Ash stepping out of the tent, with hair once more dampened from what I now knew to be a shower. "You need to stay here, with Ash. I'm going to go think and…" I hesitated at the stricken look in his eyes. "I mean it. I'll _be_ back. I promise."

"_Don't __**go**__!" _Cade's voice was strong and shrill and solid. The emotion in his voice hit me like a ton of bricks. "You promised me…you promised you'd stay! _You have to __**stay**__!_"

Stars edged my vision in ghostly black blobs and I felt dizzy at his words.

"_Don't leave me!"_

The words were Cade's, but they had an echo to them, as if I was listening to a very tinny radio, or a voice coming from down a long hallway.

"I…won't." My mouth automatically formed words I wasn't completely aware of saying. Numb pain flared in my gut and one hand reached down to splay fingers against my flat stomach.

"Gary…" Cade nudged at me, but I couldn't feel him. I only felt lost and disjointed. For the first time since I'd initially come to as a ghost, my umbreon couldn't touch me. "Gary?" His voice was now alarmed but still echoing.

Faintly, I was aware of Ash walking up behind Cade. He also looked really concerned, but when he opened his mouth to say something, I couldn't hear it.

Panic, unimaginable and overwhelming, spiked through me.

Get…away…I had to get away…_now._

Ash was a dim little blob on my radar, and when my surroundings began to blur, I had one thought in my mind. To get away. As far and as fast as I could.

I'd wanted to go to Misty. She calmed me in ways no other could. She could help me.

But when my surroundings solidified, I found myself stumbling along a dark forest trail. Trees edged in close, and bushes grew high around the trees, almost making a fence along the trail.

The dirt of the road had been cleaned of blood, raked free of body bits, and recompacted to the point where it looked like any other forest road. But I knew where I was.

This wasn't where Misty lived.

This was where I died.

xXxXx

My legs felt rooted to the spot, right there in the center of the road. I could hear Ash yelling, but his voice was young and scared. I could hear his pokemon's shrill screeches and cries. I could feel Cade's anger and hear his snarl that decided we would help out.

I could hear the tauros, caught glimpses of the miltank that the tauros had been courting.

My own fear was great, and I ran back to where I'd left Ash after our battle. When I rounded the bend, I could see the huge bull threatening Ash. Everything looked weird. Like a double vision old fashioned tv, and the sound echoed in a way that hurt my ears.

Running away was what I wanted to do, but it was what I didn't do. I could hear my own voice yelling out at the tauros, taunting it into looking at me.

"_Not Ash, look at me, you stupid bull! Come and get me! Or don't you have the balls to face me?"_

It worked.

The tauros looked at me and I knew it understood my very insulting words.

It charged me with a deep and booming bellow, and when it ran its hooves made heavy thudding sounds. I knew I'd have to be light, agile, and _fast._

All things I _knew _I could be. Things I had been many times.

And yet when I ran, it was as if I did so in slow motion. The bull was running down at me. Cade, ever loyal, positioned himself between the bull and me and attempted a dark pulse attack, but it did nothing but piss the huge bovine off even more.

With one duck and toss of his head, Cade was sent flying back through the trees that edged the road. My head snapped to track the flight and I saw him slam against a tree and fall in a lump to the base of the tree.

He didn't move.

"Cade…" My horrified whisper echoed and the bull stared me in the eyes as it ran for me.

Close, it was _too close_…

The attack flowed as smoothly as it originally did. Razor sharp horns pierced my gut and got hooked in my ribcage. I was jerked back and forth as the bull shook his head.

Fire burned in my gut, in my stomach. Pain flared like a nova as the tip of one horn pierced a lung, snapped ribs, and I involuntarily threw up from the pain and motion. The bull bellowed with rage and gave one more hefty heave of his head.

Flight. This time I flew through the air, across the road, and against a tree. Much like Cade had, I hit a tree.

Unlike Cade, my wounds sprayed blood all the way.

My stomach was slammed against the base of the tree. A heartbeat later, I rolled away from the tree onto my back. Breathing was an issue.

The wind was knocked out of me when I landed, but my gaze fixated on Ash, who was hiding so high up in a tree not too far from me. He was back towards the trunk, though I could see the wide branch that had given him the road to safety. He was safe. He had his bayleaf with him, though she hid her head against his chest. He protected her from seeing this but they were both blood soaked.

His horrified eyes caught mine and I smiled ever so slightly.

Safe.

Cade…he was safe, too. Out of the way. Out of sight.

_Stay there_.

In a completely ineffective motion, I rested my hands on my stomach, where all the pain was. Maybe if I held still but managed to staunch the flow…

It might have worked, except that my hands refused to move from where they were on the ground. I couldn't move them. It felt like I was moving them, but I could see no movement. This had happened to me once, when my arms fell asleep because I slept on them wrong. The pins and needles feeling that happened when bloodlfow resumed was intense.

There was no return of bloodflow now.

Oddly enough, I knew when the tauros was getting closer. I could feel his weight as each hoof slammed against the ground. Suddenly the angry eyes of the tauros filled my vision. An angry snort of blazing hot air blasted my open wound and the tauros was still for a second before it burst into movement.

One second it was still.

The next it was in motion.

Hooves, spliced like those of a mainland cow, meant to bear all the weight of a tauros with ease, pounded into my body. My legs, my stomach, my outstretched arms…

To say it was painful didn't do the sensation justice. The pain was like nothing I'd ever felt. It was nothing I ever wanted to relive.

It was something I instinctively knew I wouldn't survive.

The attack only took seconds and blessedly, it reached a point where it didn't hurt. Where I suddenly couldn't see the hooves and forelegs stained with my blood and…and body bits. I couldn't hear the bellows of the bull or the barely restrained terrified sounds coming from Ash.

Then suddenly the bull was gone. I was there, with my eyesight gone black, unable to feel anything. A ringing was in my ears, and I could just barely hear Ash screaming something that I couldn't understand. Once again there was a presence near me and fear engulfed me that the tauros had returned, that it wanted to _hurt_ me again, but all I heard was the strained sound of Cade's voice.

Somehow…I could understand him. I knew it was him, though he wasn't repeating variations of his name. He spoke in words I could _understand_.

_:Don't leave, Gary…__**please **__don't leave!:_

It hurt to breathe. I couldn't tell if I was breathing. Somehow, I managed to choke out words to answer him.

"_Won't…go…"_

Cade seemed shocked, and though I couldn't see him, I could hear him. _:B…boss…how…: _A split second pause. _:Don't leave me, please, please stay! Stay here…with me…please!:_

"_Stay…here...with y…you…"_

He sounded relieved. _:Yes, yes, stay here! Promise me you'll stay!:_

"…_I…p…promise…"_

And then I could _feel_ him as he stretched out next to me.

"_P…p…promi…" _

But I couldn't finish the word. I had no more air. No more strength to try to take another breath. My fuzzy mind was angry that I couldn't find the strength to just _breathe_, just once again. I didn't even have the strength to hold on to that last breath as it sighed out of me.

It had a lot of exits to chose from.

Cade's words went from understandable to unintelligible in a flash, and his voice faded to nothing.

Suddenly I felt like I was freezing cold.

A flare of pain struck me and I blacked out.

xXxXx

When I came to, I realized I was laying on my back. My head was partially in the base of a tree's trunk, and it was very dark out. I could just barely see anything due to the inky darkness, though Cade's calm red eyes glowed crimson.

They only glowed like that when he was really emotional about something.

"You're really morbid, you know this, don't you?" His voice, though calm and collected, was shaky.

"Why don't you come over here and say that?" I taunted him, though my voice was equally as shaky.

But he did and when he came over to me, I was able to wrap my arms around his neck. "What the fuck happened, Cade?"

"I…I…" For once it was Cade at a loss for words.

"He accidentally triggered a very powerful memory sequence," Ash's voice came from my left. "And that caused you to…"

"I relived my own death." I could finish that trail of thought pretty easily. It didn't take a rocket scientist, or a Chosen One, to figure that out.

"Yeah."

Cade helped me to sit up. I wasn't dizzy or lightheaded, though I suppose having a body would've helped more with having such reactions.

"I'm sorry, boss," Cade whimpered. "I didn't think."

"It's okay, buddy," I whispered and rubbed between his ears. "I know."

"It's not okay," he growled low. "I…you went through that _twice_!"

I'd actually gone through it _quite_ a few times since I died, but I wasn't going to tell him that. However, this was the first time I recalled anything beyond being gored and stomped. This was the first time I remembered actually _dying_.

"I promised you I'd stay," I said softly. "I failed you in that."

"No, you didn't," he protested. "You did stay. I just wish you'd have stayed alive."

"Me too."

"Well, time's not up yet," Ash said. "You have…" A light blue glow momentarily lit his face as he looked at his wristwatch. "You have a half an hour."

It was then that I noticed my surroundings. "Why don't you have a campfire lit?"

Silence.

"We're not at camp, are we?" I inquired.

"No," Ash said. "You teleported _here_." No guesses needed as to where _here_ was. "When we arrived, you weren't in sight, but we could both sense the energy you were using during the recall."

"Recall?" The word meant nothing to me, but I felt very heavy and I didn't want to move much.

"Reliving that crap," Cade said and nudged at my arm. "C'mon, boss, we gotta get you back to camp. Can't have Mewtwo finding the place empty."

I tried to stand up, I really did, but I still felt like I'd just bled out everywhere. I half expected to see blood all over Ash and the clearing. What the bull did to Cade stuck out in my mind. "You were hurt."

Cade was surprised. "Y…yeah…"

"I want to know where," I demanded and reached for my umbreon.

He leaped back, lithely, and shook his head. "Back to camp." He looked up at Ash. "Okay?"

Ash, who I could just barely see in the dimness of the trail. The thick canopy of overarching tree branches made it near impossible for moon and stars to shine any light here. "Yeah, if you two are ready to…"

But I wasn't done with Cade. "Where were you hurt?"

"It's not important."

"Yes, it is!"

My umbreon stared up at me with grief stricken red eyes. "I can't…" He sighed heavily. "This can wait. You have a decision to make."

"Yeah, and if I chose I won't know!"

Cade's eyes widened. "What do you mean, you won't know?"

_Shit._

"No, I get it." He shook his head and snorted ruefully. "I'm not angry, Gary. Kinda disappointed, but not angry."

"Well let me one up you on your disappointment," I said and firmly shoved away my regret at not picking Cade's option. "And tell me where you were hurt by the bull. Because all I can see is that you're whole, uninjured, and sparkling clean."

"This happened awhile ago, boss."

Back to boss again, huh? Words speak louder than actions. A knot of emotions began to grow in my gut. "But you _were_ hurt."

"I…" A pause and a sigh. "I _was_."

My poor umbreon, who gleamed like gold and pitch in the moonlight, looked a bit too false all of a sudden. Too shiny. Too healthy.

His bad eating habits.

His sometimes lack of energy.

The fact that we could touch each other.

That I could understand him when he spoke to me.

"So," I ventured as casually as I could. "When did _you_ die?"

xXxXx

I spy with my blue-grey eyes…a cliffhanger!


	6. Chapter 6

xXxXx

Cade's emotions seemed to range from shock to anger to nothing in the space of seconds. He looked up at Ash. "Can you just take us back to the campsite?"

"You're not going to answer my question, are you?"

He looked back at me and snorted. "If I answer now, here, it'll ruin the moment."

"Moment? Cade, _what_ moment? I _died_ here!"

He looked back up at Ash with a long suffering expression. "Please?"

"Consider it done," Ash grinned, and suddenly we were _there_ at the campsite. It wasn't the same way that I teleported, where my surroundings blur and resharpen. With Ash it was one second we were at my death site, the next we were at the campsite.

And I was still sitting on the ground. Not even slightly in the ground or in a tree or boulder. I was just there, sitting on the ground. What surprised me was that I wasn't exhausted anymore.

Testing myself a bit, I moved my arm. No weird feeling. Feeling really brave, I stood up. No trying to, no stumbling, I just stood up. It was the oddest feeling.

"Just a little something," Ash muttered.

I looked over and arched an eyebrow. "You made me not feel like I was about to disintegrate?"

He shrugged.

"Th…thanks." I managed to bite out. Yes, so he said we were friends in the future, but for me it wasn't the future. It was hard to express my gratitude to someone I still didn't fully trust.

And speaking of those I didn't fully trust. I looked over at Cade. "Spill it."

He huffed and looked away.

"That's a direct order."

His head snapped back around and shock was in his eyes. "You haven't given me a direct order since I was an eevee."

"I know." My tone of voice wasn't friendly, but I was slightly pissed and hurt. How could he keep this from me?

"But I'm not keeping anything from you, boss." My umbreon whispered it out and looked up at me with a beseeching expression. "I could be sarcastic and tell you I withered away out of pain and sadness, but I didn't. I…I healed. I thrived. I _**lived**_. I lived when you did not." He shook his head and sat heavily on his haunches. "I'm…I'm not worthy of living. You should've lived, not me."

"I think Mewtwo already made that argument a moot point."

He glared up at me with eyes that blazed so red that a crimson glow dusted his muzzle.

_Ouch._

"If you _**dare**_ to mock my sorrow, I will hurt you so badly that you'll wish for a permanent death."

The strength of his words hit into me, not physically of course, but emotionally. "So, you're…"

"I'm not dead and I never was," Cade said in a softer tone and sighed. "I was taken to the emergency center in town and they healed me. At the same time that you were dying, _**dead**_, they were saving me."

"Gramps…"

"He did all he could for me, but nothing was ever the same." Cade snorted as he looked beyond me and beyond Ash. Looked into the past for all I knew. "The others chastised me, chased me off, when I told them you were still here. They said I was dishonoring your death with my hallucinations."

"I couldn't get them to see me."

"And you tried, boss, you _tried_." Cade jiggled his shoulders in a shrug. "Why I can see you, why we can interact with each other, I don't know. Maybe it's Arceus given. Maybe we're just that strange. I don't know."

"So you're not…"

"No."

"And you never…"

"Almost," another shrug. "That taurus got me good with his horns as well. He just didn't stomp on me like he did to you."

Cade's words elicited a ghostly flash of pain in my gut and I rubbed at it. "Yeah."

He was there, rubbing against my leg. "Sorry, I didn't mean to make you remember."

"Don't worry about it."

"He's on his way," Ash's quiet voice somehow rang loud to my ears. "Mewtwo will be here within the next ten minutes."

"Great," I muttered and rubbed between Cade's ears. Even without a body, I felt a nervous clench in my stomach. There was more that I needed to ask of Mewtwo.

And let's call this paybacks, shall we?

xXxXx

By the time Mewtwo arrived, I was in a whole world of tension. Cade was by my side, leaning against my right leg. Ash was to the side of me, with a weird energy coming from him. Chosen One power was my only guess.

Yeah, being dead apparently gave me the ability to feel out creepy power surges.

"Have you decided, Gary Oak?" Mewtwo's tonal voice crept out of the darkness a moment before I saw him. He appeared beside the fire, once again Ash provided pyrotechnics, and the light from the flames danced over the pokemon's tall form.

"I have," I said in a tone of voice I _hoped_ conveyed strength and decisiveness. Possibly it made me sound like a squeaky little kid, but I was going for zen.

"Enlighten me, so that I may proceed with my night's activities."

I stared over at Ash, desperate for visuals other than what Mewtwo might describe as nightly activities.

The evil bastard, Ash not Mewtwo, chuckled and shook his head. "Go on, Gary."

_Fuckwit,_ I wanted to bite back at him, then realized I'd stopped wondering about the Pokemon's nightly activities and…

_Damnit! _I was thinking about it again!

"Gary Oak, _**may**_ we proceed?" The large pokemon sounded a bit peeved.

"Sorry," I muttered. "I'm just a bit nervous."

"As well you should be, given the images I just saw from your mind." Mewtwo's icy gaze locked on to me and his irritated tone of voice let me know exactly what he saw.

Steeling myself, I stared up at him. "I want to ask you two things."

The pokemon's eyes flared purple for a moment and he shook his head. "No to both."

I deflated like a popped balloon. "What? I didn't even ask you anything!"

"You visualized them, Gary," Ash explained from beside me. "Pretty much the same as talking when you're around psychics."

Helplessly, I looked over at him. "Can't you just…"

Ash shook his head.

"Fuck it all!" I snapped out angrily and glared at the tall Pokemon. "You _killed_ me! The least you can do is…is…I don't know, compensate me!"

That pokemon's gaze never wavered. "You mean other than unkilling you?"

"Boss, don't," Cade said from my feet. "It's not worth it."

"The hell it's not, little brother," I stared over at Mewtwo. "Two things. Just those two things and you never hear from me or see me again."

"I never have to see or hear from you ever again regardless, _human_." The bipedal pokemon sneered over at me. "I can leave you as dead as you are right now if I so desire to."

"Don't piss him off!" Cade yelped out. "Please, Gary, _don't_!"

"You'll take this from me."

"I took your _life_ from you and I am giving it back. I hardly see the need to reimburse you greater than turning back time and making it so that you do not die."

"I don't want to lose this."

That gave the large pokemon a start. "Come again?"

"All of this sucked. I can't deny that at all." I sighed, deep and unnecessarily so. "But even though the majority of this was a horrible ordeal, I don't want to give up those two things."

"You will misuse them." Mewtwo shook his head. "All humans misuse gifts."

"Not this one," I said curtly. "I'm an asshole, I know that. One day, I might even grow out of it," and here I grinned over at Ash. "But the one thing about me that never changes is that I'm an Oak. Once I make a promise, I keep it." I stared the pokemon in the eyes. "Will you grant me these two things or not?"

Mewtwo stared right back. "No."

"Just do it," Ash sighed out. "If you don't…"

"If I do not," Mewtwo corrected Ash's truncation of words before continuing. "_He_ will not remember his request. I fail to see why I should grant him those requests."

"Because I'm _telling_ you to," Ash stepped forward and I was surprised to see _his_ eyes starting to shine a little in the darkness. They were tinted with a glowing gold color. "As the Grand Master _and_ the Chosen One."

Mewtwo's eyes narrowed.

"Do you _really_ want a rematch?" Ash sighed a bit wearily. "I can, you know. Right here, right now."

There was still a pause before Mewtwo sighed. "Fine. I'll grant him his infernal requests."

Pure happiness raced through me, even as Cade stared up at me with a confused expression. "Boss, what in the Pit did you just do?"

xXxXx

Ah, yes, what did I do, indeed? I wouldn't tell Cade. He'd know soon enough. Hopefully.

Mewtwo turned out to be quite the bluffer. He had been hoping I wouldn't make a decision, so that he would just leave me to my ghost state for all eternity. He didn't realize I'd make a decision _and_ a request.

Two requests.

"Boss! C'mon already!"

"All in due time," I said breezily as I leaned against the tree, and screw it all if I wasn't feeling pretty good. There were still quite a number of hours before Mewtwo would speak with his past self. He said he needed time to prepare. Not for the conference call into the past. He needed some time to prepare for my requests.

And so Cade and I, and Ash, were sitting at the campsite. He was telling me stories of the future, of the things we did and situations we got into, while we waited for Mewtwo's return.

Ash told me that the large pokemon didn't need to actually be here, but that he liked the theatrics of it all.

I was, of course, warned to not call Mewtwo theatrical or a drama queen. Being that I wanted my requests fulfilled exactly as I asked them to be fulfilled, I intended to fully comply.

The time period that encompassed this whole ordeal seemed to have dragged from the time I died, to meeting with Celebi, and camping with Ash. But now, as we waited for Mewtwo to show up, time felt like it was speeding up. It was the oddest thing. One moment I had been teasing Cade and leaning against a tree and later talking with Ash, and then the next thing I noticed was that Cade had fallen asleep in Ash's lap.

Ash's hand, grown and strong looking, was stroking Cade's back. The fire had died down, and Ash had let it do that because he could keep a fire going as long as he wanted to, and the sky was lightening.

And I was still dead.

"He's…on his way," Ash's voice was soft but shattered the stillness nonetheless.

"Hnh," I huffed and turned to face east. Ash, Cade, and the campfire was behind me. I stared fixedly at the horizon, which I could see through a break in the trees. There was a lot of forest around us, but beyond that was a range of small mountains. Not nearly tall enough to be snow covered, but taller than any mere hill.

"You're nervous."

"You wouldn't be?" I glared over my right shoulder at him, rolled my eyes, and looked back at the horizon.

"Yeah, I would."

There was enough of a length of silence from him that I turned around to make sure he hadn't left. Ash was staring down at Cade, stroking my umbreon's back as he did. He was so quiet that if he hadn't been petting Cade, I'd have thought he was asleep.

"You didn't sleep, did you?"

He looked up at me and shook his head.

"Nitwit," I snorted, then walked over to sit on one of the fallen logs we'd been using as benches.

"Gee, Gary, only a few hours ago I was a fuckwit," Ash grinned. "You toning down on your insults?"

Yeah, again, if I could have flushed from a bit of embarrassment, I might have. I'm Gary Oak, after all. It _should_ take a lot to embarrass me.

Should.

"So. You heard that, huh?"

Ash actually chuckled. "Sometimes, the way you think is like someone shouting. You think too loud, Gary."

_I do not! _I fumed silently.

"You do, too," Ash corrected me. "We can work on that later though, okay?"

In reply, I visualized myself flipping him the bird.

"Real mature, Gary," Ash rolled his eyes.

"What?" I said standoffishly. "I'm a guy, a teenager. You know I won't mature till I'm as ancient as you are."

"Ancient!" Ash's eyes widened and he scoffed. "I'm not old."

"Those grey strands in your hair say otherwise."

"I don't have grey hair," Ash snorted. "My wife is great at making sure of that."

"Your wife?" I echoed, feeling a bit anxious. "And that would be…"

"None of your business," Ash closed his eyes and looked away, then opened his eyes and looked at the fire. The weakening flames flickered a little more strongly. "She doesn't have red hair, though."

"What?"

Ash stared over at me with a smile. "You did get married. Eventually, Gary, one woman was strong enough to get you to bend to the ball and chain."

"Eventually, huh?"

"Mmhmm," Ash nodded. "But I think you're just fine with it."

"So your wife isn't a red head?"

"Nope."

"And mine is?"

Ash snorted. "Nice try, Gary. I'm not telling you _that _much."

Cade stirred then, picking his head off of Ash's lap and looking startled, and then a bit self-conscious, at where he'd fallen asleep at. "Sorry," he mumbled, before stumbling off of Ash's lap with a less than dignified leap to the ground. He stretched and looked around. "No show, yet?"

"Not yet, apparently." I crouched down and Cade trotted over to me. This time I ran my hand along his back and smiled at how affectionate he seemed. I called him on it.

"I could just bite you," Cade sat on his haunches and grinned toothily up at me in reply.

"Yeah, no thanks."

He sighed and leaned against my leg after I stood up. "Seriously, boss, I just…I'm gonna miss all this." He growled a little, though I think he was a bit perturbed at himself. "Not this whole dead thing. I'm gonna miss talking with you."

"You can still talk with me." I desperately wanted to tell him my plans, but I even more desperately didn't want to hurt him if one or the other didn't come to fruition. Yeah, it wouldn't matter if Mewtwo decided to not keep his end of the bargain. Neither of us would remember. But if I did tell Cade what I asked from Mewtwo, and the one important thing wasn't granted, things would suck.

"Gary."

Ash's calm voice had my head nearly snapping over in his direction. His dark eyes were fixed on me.

"He's coming, right?"

The dark haired man nodded. "Ready?"

Taking an unnecessary, though calming, breath, I sighed. "Yeah."

Cade stayed by my side, red eyes flashing in the dim early morning light. Sunrise was just about to happen. After so many sleepless nights, I just knew when the sun would rise.

What I didn't know was when psychic pokemon would pop out of nowhere into the area I was in.

Mewtwo did that just then. This time, while surprised, I didn't shriek like a little girl.

While Mewtwo stared at me, I stood tall, shoulders back, with Cade standing faithfully by my side. His gold bands glowed softly in the brightening predawn light.

"Are you ready, Oak?"

"Yeah," I said in the strongest voice I could muster (though I couldn't hide the slight tremble in it).

The tall pokemon started to walk closer and I took a couple of involuntary steps back.

"It's okay, Gary," Ash stood up and was just suddenly there to my left. "He's going to fulfill his promise."

Cade pressed against my leg and when I looked down at him, he looked up at me with a worried expression. "What if he doesn't?"

"Then you will not know, now will you?" Mewtwo sighed his annoyance. "Now if you do not mind, I'm not comfortable with prolonged good-byes and maudlin displays of emotion. I would like to get this done with and get on with my plans for today."

Blinking slightly, I stared at him. He was, truly, the most unusual pokemon I'd ever encountered.

"Gary, even though he won't explain it to you, I will."

Ash's statement was a little confusing. "What?"

"When this happens, it'll be like when you'd teleport places. Your surroundings get all blurry and then reshape."

"Have you any questions?" Mewtwo's question sounded bored and a little forced.

"_When_ are you returning me?" I felt that was the more urgent question to ask.

Mewtwo nearly smiled. It was there, a little teeny quirk of his mouth. "Ah, so you do have a functioning brain. Congratulations."

Cade growled softly at Mewtwo's snark. As it was, I bit back my own little growl. It was very rare that I was the target of a verbal takedown.

"You will be returned to the point of your accident," Mewtwo shrugged, a lithe roll of his shoulders. "A little before or after. I'm not sure yet."

"What?" My jaw nearly gaped. "What do you mean that you're not sure?!"

"I will inform my past self to not rile up the tauros _at all_, however, how you act in those few seconds in that particular area of time will be entirely up to you."

"That doesn't make any sense!" Cade blurted out.

"Life does not make much sense, little one," Mewtwo cocked his head to the side. "Are you ready?"

My eyes flicked over to look at Ash, who snorted and gave a little shrug. I looked back over at Mewtwo. "Yeah, I…we're ready."

"Ah yes, the umbreon, too." He waved his hands, paws, whatever, in the air. "Come now, gather closer, children."

Not a chance did I _want_ to get closer, but I knew I had no choice. I took a few steps closer, as did Cade. The closer we got, for me the more it felt like I was wading through waist high water. I looked back at Ash and was surprised to see that he and everything around him were blurry.

He gave a little wave and smiled. To me, it was a mix of sadness and happiness.

Returning his wave with my own patented Gary Oak wave, and figuring Cade and I would be blurry to him, I thought my farewells back to him. _"Later, loser." _Ah, fond words of parting. Even so, it wasn't said as cruelly as I had said it to him many times before.

His response to me? A mental chuckle and a return thought of _"I look forward to it, Oak."_

Freaking sappy.

The closer we walked towards Mewtwo, with my sights firmly fixed on the pokemon, the more he turned into a huge purply blob that faded into darkness. Somehow, I could hear Cade's little worried growls and it was oddly comforting.

Then, after what felt like a lot of walking through what progressively felt like water turned to jello, my feet stepped onto a well traveled, hard packed dirt road. Instantly the sluggish feeling vanished, but my thoughts, which had been crystal clear, were nearly as instantaneously foggy.

Almost automatically, I reached for Cade's pokeball and aimed it at him. It was with an unhappy sound that he vanished into a swirl of red light and I turned to see Ash fuming at me.

Ash. Ten year old Ash. My thoughts sharpened for a moment, before dulling again, and I smirked at him. It was overpowering that I wanted to smirk at him and I allowed myself to do so in the most annoying way possible. I expertly spun Cade's pokeball on my middle finger, then tossed it into the air and grabbing on to it, before clipping the sphere to its magnetic housing on my belt.

It hit me that I was redoing everything I'd initially done. Every wave, every insulting gesture, every move, was what I'd done the first time around.

Walking away from him, I did my patented backwards wave.

And yet, every step I took away from him, my stomach seemed to be in knots.

Every step I took from Ash, the more sharp my mind grew.

The memories of what had happened, and the awareness that I'd been returned back into the past, was at the front of my thoughts.

How many steps _had_ it been until the tauros crashed through the brush? Ten? Twenty? Thirty? That much, I couldn't remember.

What I did know was that Cade was _pissed_ that I'd locked him in his pokeball. And locked him in I did, because I didn't want him hurt if Mewtwo hadn't kept his word. His pokeball vibrated on the belt, making buzzing little sounds like an angry bee. I grabbed it in my hands to try to keep it quiet, to keep it shut. The little brat knew how to open the ball.

"_You're such a jerk, Gary!"_

Ash's angry holler rang through the immediate area and I winced at it. It was an angry bellow. An angry sound I didn't need to hear. Could _that_ rile up the bull pokemon?

No way was I going to stop. The sooner I was out of the area, the sooner Ash would walk away as well, though in the opposite direction I was walking in. I continued walking along the road, with Cade's pokeball clutched in my right hand. I kept my eyes fixed on the road ahead of me. I knew that there was a pokemon center not too far. Maybe a twenty minute walk.

From the corner of my eye, I could see the tauros, _the pokemon that had killed me_, in a small clearing not too far from the road. There was a miltank there as well. Apparently, our little battle really had disrupted their courting session. She was in the clearing, while he was partially in the brush, facing in my direction.

My stomach clenched with phantom pains. Though my stride never faltered, I certainly wasn't beyond the flight part of fight or flight. Apparently Cade could sense my unease because the vibrating increased and I could see a spill of white light around the seam of the pokeball.

Irritated, I gripped the sphere tighter.

I could _not_ let Cade's misdirected sense of protection cause the tauros to bolt after me. A tauros in musk was just as bad as beedrill on a bad day.

A low mooing nearly spooked me, but it got the attention of the tauros and the bull backed away and trotted back to his lady love.

_I should warn Ash. _The thought came to me and nearly had me stumble. If hot headed little Ash came after me, the tauros might get _him_.

"He'll be fine."

At that I did jump and nearly dropped Cade's pokeball. Walking next to me was Ash. As in future, full grown, ancient Ash.

"I'm not ancient," Ash muttered.

"No, but you _are_ older than me."

"And now you'll get old, too," Ash smirked over at me. "And you better believe I'm gonna remember _that_, Oak."

"Well that's good!" I said brightly. "Keep the mind sharp and you can remember just about any thing at your advanced age. Good for you!"

Ash snorted, then chuckled. "This is going to be interesting, Gary."

We were long past the bovine pokemon and it was safe to talk. "Someone going to do something about those pokemon?"

"It's okay," Ash said, looking thoughtful. "The bull only attacked you because Mewtwo influenced him. Even in the height of a musk, he shouldn't have attacked at all. His instincts should've been on her, not you."

"Yeah."

We continued to walk along the road and it wasn't until the pokemon center was in sight that Ash sighed.

"Gonna be heading back soon?"

Not looking at me, he nodded. "Things are back to normal. Mewtwo has kept his word."

"So far."

Ash looked over at me and smiled. "Nope, he kept them both as well."

My grin was large for a second, before I schooled it into a calm façade. "Good."

"You're not going to go looking for Mewtwo, are you?"

"You crazy?" I scoffed. "Because _I'm_ not. I'm not stupid, Ash. I know far better than that."

"Good, cuz he's incredibly powerful. Most trainers would want that on their team."

"I like living," I muttered and smirked at the irony. I repeated it, just a bit more softly. "I like being alive."

"I like it, too," Ash said in that Zen calm tone of voice I couldn't even try to duplicate. "To keep it secret, I placed a sort of a barrier around Cade's pokeball. He couldn't hear what we said back before Mewtwo reversed your situation or what you've been thinking."

"So he doesn't know anything about what I asked Mewto for?"

Ash shook his head. "Not a thing." A warning light came into his eyes. "Be nice, Gary. I won't protect you from Cade's revenge if you try to play things off too much."

"But a little fun never hurt."

"It might," Ash grinned. "He's got sharp teeth."

xXxXx

Just one more chapter after this, folks. Hope you enjoyed :)


	7. Chapter 7

xXxXx

We parted ways just before the Pokemon center. Ash made me promise to take care of Cade and to not beat up on his younger self _too_ badly. I told him it would be good for his moral if I did.

He wasn't amused by that, so I promised to not be too big of an asshole.

Ash sighed patiently. "You'll never stop swearing like it was your native language, will you?"

"No more than you guys stopping from reading my thoughts."

"_So_ not my problem if you can't control your mental voice volume."

I flipped him off and he rolled his eyes.

Then he got a serious expression and for a moment a hint of gold flared to life in his brown eyes. "Do things right, Gary. Be you, but don't be a jackass about it. I promise, you'll get to that point in your life when things really start to go in the right direction." He tilted his head to the side. "And when that day arrives, that's when you'll know."

"Know what?"

He grinned that cheesy grin of his. "You'll be as ancient as me."

"Only better looking and without the grey in my hair."

"I do not have grey…" He trailed off with a sigh. "Always have to get the last word, huh?"

"It's in my DNA."

"That I almost believe." He walked away then, down the road, and did a little wave. "Later, Oak."

"Oh, _no, _you did not!"

That familiar mental chuckle of his was my answer.

"That's mine, Ketchum! _I trademarked it!_"

Other than another mental chuckle, there was a slight popping sound as he vanished and suddenly there were people walking around. I hadn't noticed any people walking around before. Had he kept us shielded from other people? Had the other people been there all this time but we'd just been invisible or something? Had the dragon of time done something?

I'd have to ask Ash. Later, of course.

For now, I had to get Cade checked out by Nurse Joy. And then, _finally_, I'd get something to eat.

xXxXx

_A few weeks later…_

"Swear to Arceus, I hate every single one of those damned beedrill!" Cade growled as he fell against me, panting and weak, despite being victorious in battle.

The beedrill in question (as in one) had limped back (in flight) to the nearest tree to faint away its loss.

Silently, I dug out an antidote and used it on Cade. "Sorry for the low stash, little brother. That should tide you over until we get to Saffron."

It'd been a couple of weeks since Mewtwo had fixed what he had wronged and I was taking full advantage of my renewal of life. I hadn't let Cade in on the fact that I remembered what had happened _and_ that I could fully understand every word he uttered.

I caught him looking at me every now and then and by his body language I knew he remembered our time while I was dead. I knew he wasn't confused about what Mewtwo did, but he did look at me sadly from time to time. I wouldn't keep this charade up much longer.

After all, the longer I did, the more painful his bite would be. I had no illusions about it. Cade would bite the mess out of me for this. And then he would probably melt into a pile of sobbing goo.

He'd bite me for that thought, for sure.

Ash, fantastic guy that he is, told me I'd have three weeks of Cade not reading my thoughts. After that, the little shield he built around my thoughts would be gone. It would be up to me to keep my thoughts to myself. For shits and giggles, I planned to make a stop into Saffron. Build up on a little psychic training to try to keep my thoughts to myself.

And then I'd go to Cerulean. I wanted to see Misty, almost desperately, but I'd have to do it the hard way.

This much, the traveling, sucked the most about being alive again. Oh, I could probably have my car and driver and cheerleaders again, but…After this time without people around me, with it being just Cade and me, I kind of liked it like that.

Awkwardly enough, after being around grown Ash, I found that I'd liked him. I didn't want little Ash to grow up all bitter and bullied. I sort of wanted him to be that zen-like Ash. Confident and self aware.

Plus the world didn't need a Chosen One who might abuse power against those who bullied him.

Yeah, I know. This being said by the guy who flipped off said Chosen One on his return to life.

Crazy, ain't I?

xXxXx

It was later that night that I couldn't keep things hidden from Cade. It wasn't that Ash's shield failed. It was fully in place.

I just couldn't take Cade's bitching.

Nitpicking on the road, trash talking the competition (in battles), chatting up the ladies…it was unreal! I think some of his bitching came from remembering my death and being alive again and not knowing if I also remembered it. After all, I did tell him how much I'd miss talking with him.

We were at a campfire, made by yours truly (the hard way, with matches and campfire brickettes), watching the fire bank down slowly as we both drifted off to sleep. Well, I was drifting off to sleep while Cade was keeping watch. He was really watchful of me, especially at night. It reminded me of how I'd watch him sleep, back when I was dead.

Since it was such a nice night, with warm temperatures and rain not due for another couple of days, I'd decided to lay out in my sleeping bag. I didn't bother with a tent and ended up staring at the campfire to try to get to sleep. I was about to fall asleep when Cade offhandedly said something that I accidentally replied to.

"Nights like these really make me miss Ash."

"Mmhmm," I mumbled under my breath as I burrowed my head against my pillow. I was back among the living new enough to appreciate the hardness of the ground under my sleeping bag and the softness of a good pillow. It'd probably take a few weeks before I got over that and ended up nabbing a room at a pokemon center.

Being so focused on sleeping, I missed Cade's sharp look over at me.

"Even though his culinary skills regarding s'mores left much to be desired."

"Yeah," Sleep was muddling my mind and I replied automatically. "Kept getting that stuff stuck to his teeth, too."

"_**I KNEW IT!"**_

His voice, so close to me because he was nearly yelling in my damned ears, was a mix of triumph an danger. The volume of his voice had me instantly awake.

"What?!" I propped myself up on my elbows, face to muzzle with a pissed off umbreon.

"You know damned well what!" Cade's jaws snapped audibly. "_You can understand me!_"

"Uh…" A million quips came to mind. None resulted in anything less painful than requiring stitches except, maybe, one.

The truth.

"Yeah, I know. I'm sorry."

Cade's anger seemed to deflate almost instantly and he sidled up next to me, laying on the ground. "Why didn't you say something?"

"Because I…," I floundered, then realized what the other truth was. "I didn't know if it would hold, Cade, or if it would vanish."

"What is _it_, exactly."

"The two things I asked Mewtwo for," I replied. "I wanted to remember our time together, and I wanted to be able to understand you."

"You wanted to remember being dead?"

"It's like I said. I liked talking with you. I didn't want to forget what happened."

Cade was silent for so long that I figured he had fallen asleep. Then he spoke up. "I can't believe you did that."

"It seemed like a good idea at the time."

He got up, sat on his haunches, and stared at me. His ruby eyes glittered in the light of the dying campfire and he blinked a few times. Then he leaned forward and rested his chin on my shoulder briefly before sitting back up. "Thank you."

"That's it?" My turn to blink. "I don't get it. You're not gonna bite me?"

"Oh, I plan on doing that," Cade showed sharp teeth in a brief umbreon grin. "And you won't know when or how hard I'll bite. But I do thank you for your requests to Mewtwo. I don't know of any other human crazy enough to want to remember being dead, but you're special, boss."

"You say that like it's a bad thing."

Cade laughed. "You're an ass."

"Uh oh, that's bad then," I said it seriously. "Ash said I can't be an ass."

"Guess you'll need help on that," Cade sighed wearily. "Looks like I have my work cut out for me."

"Oh, you do, huh?"

"Yep," Cade huffed a sigh. "Ash told me to watch over you and make sure you stop being such a jackass."

My jaw gaped. "What!" Then I snorted and smirked. "That is a challenge I willingly accept. And I'll make him eat those words."

"Really?" Cade asked dryly.

"Hell yeah."

xXxXx

_Epilogue – Twenty years later…_

There was a knock at the door and a young woman poked her head into my dressing room. "If you're ready, sir, you've got fifteen minutes before you're needed on stage."

Sir. As if I'd ever get used to that. It made me feel positively ancient.

"I'll be ready," I replied in a steady, easy going tone of voice.

The young woman nodded and retreated, closing the door softly behind her.

At my feet, Cade yawned hugely and stood up. He stretched and I watched him carefully. He was at a very advanced age, yet still seemed limber and lithe. His black fur was streaked in areas with silver. It was the only indication of his age.

His teeth were still sharp and his jaws had lost none of their muscle.

Standing up, I walked over to get my long sleeved white lab jacket that was hanging from a wall peg. I rubbed my left arm, bare in the short sleeved black shirt I was wearing, and rubbed at a series of old scars there. They ran along the top of my forearm, right where Cade had bitten me, repeatedly, in his revenge bite.

"You're not still whining over that, are you?" Cade asked with a laugh.

"I'm sorry, I don't believe I've whined yet today," I replied as I pulled the jacket on. Embroidered in blue lettering was "Professor Oak" which was something I had tried to be changed to at least have my first name in there as well.

After all, Professor Oak was my grandfather. He'd be there today to watch my lecture.

"Well, there's still time," my ever faithful umbreon replied. He stared up at me with a steady expression, and his voice changed from teasing to serious. "Today's the day. Worried?"

I didn't even hesitate and nodded. "Yeah, a bit."

"Ash said that Mewtwo kept his word," Cade said. "You and I still remember all of your ghostlyness and we're still talking to each other. I'm pretty sure that's a good sign."

"Yeah," I agreed, even as I ran a lint roller over my pants. "But I've never been one to fully trust others with my life."

Cade sighed. "I trust him."

There was a knock at the door and Ash's voice rang out. "C'mon, Oak, you done putting on your makeup yet?"

My eye twitched, then twitched a little more when Cade laughed. _"Asswipe," _I thought angrily at him.

"Now, now, that's no way to speak to your bestie."

"I know, Ketchum, that's how I speak to you." I glared at the door as I put the lint roller back on the table.

"_Chaaaa, Pikapi."_

Stalking over to the door, I pulled it open, grinning slightly as I did. Beyond the door stood Ash Ketchum, Grand Master and Chosen One. He was dressed casually in black jeans, a dark blue shirt, and those ever present black hiking boots of his. Pikachu, the one and only, was perched on his right shoulder. The yellow mouse looked strong, though a little thinner in this later age of her life.

"She looks good," I nodded to the now purring Pikachu.

"And I can't even begin to thank you," Ash said as he gently ran a hand along Pikachu's side. "This wasn't even originally an option."

Being the Chosen One gave Ash a lot of weird perks. One of them was remembering the timeline whereby Pikachu had died of her age. Also known as the timeline where I died from a pissed off tauros' attack.

"I've already said you're welcome a million times, Ketchum. I guess old age has settled in your noggin." I sighed, a little sadly. "Shame, that."

Ash rolled his eyes. "Way to ruin the moment, Gary." He smiled anyway. "Told you that you invented some really helpful things."

"What I did for her and Cade…" and thousands of other pokemon "…wasn't one of those helpful things you knew of."

"It really wasn't," Ash said as he reached up to rub the mouse under her chin.

"But knowing that I was supposed to be inventing all this cool stuff, and knowing how sad you were about her, I had to do something." Even though Pikachu knew I was responsible for the invention that allowed her to live longer, I couldn't say the words "her death" right in front of her. It seemed tacky.

"I wasn't sad," Ash said in an attempt to salvage his manliness.

My look to him was wry.

"Okay, so maybe a little."

I arched an eyebrow.

"Okay, a lot," Ash sighed. "She means the world to me."

"I promise to _not_ tell your wife you just said that."

Ash grinned. "She wouldn't mind. She knows what Pik means to me."

"Yeah, so anyway, Mister sappy ass Chosen One…"

"And Grand Master."

"I have a lecture to give and you have a chair to fill in my audience."

Cade snorted. "And his ego is not harmed in the least."

When I went to walk out of the dressing room, Ash grabbed my arm. Gently, but still a grab. "Gary, when the time comes, uh, you might feel a little off for a moment."

My eyes flicked from his hold on my arm to his dark brown eyes. "How off?"

He shrugged, let go of my arm, and looked a little uncomfortable. "A little dizzy, maybe a little faint."

My mind swept through a number of scenarios. "So even though Mewtwo is keeping his word, this is the point where shit originally hit the fan and I might feel something."

Ash nodded. "Yeah, more or less."

"Fantastic."

Cade rubbed against my freshly de-Cade furred pants legs. "Don't worry, boss. I'll bite you if it looks like you're about to faint like a little girl."

My glare his way was withering. "Gee, thanks."

"No problem." He strode out of the dressing room, making a left to go towards the stage.

"I guess this is it," I looked at Ash, feeling a little weird already. "I guess I feel like I should say some thanks of my own, Ash."

He looked surprised. "What? Why?"

I snorted softly. "Without you, I'd still be dead. By now, so would Cade, Pikachu, and a whole bunch of other pokemon. The inventions I created wouldn't exist. A lot of people have a lot of things in their lives that they wouldn't have had. They, and I, owe a lot of thanks to you."

His cheeks flushed, such an Ash reaction, though his natural Zenness that cloaked him like a second skin made his reply a calm one. "They have you to thank as well."

"You're still such a sap, Ash."

"And you're always going to be an egotistical diva, Gary."

"Yeah, you're probably right," I grinned. "C'mon, Chosen One. My fans await me."

We walked the hallway towards the stage. There were a number of people buzzing around in their behind the scenes hive of activity. Everyone gave us as wide a berth as the hallway allowed, but only because they were so busy. No one was afraid of us. I'd worked hard on not being an insufferable jackass.

"Professor Oak, over here, please!' A stage hand walked up to us with a mic earpiece in his hand. Being that this was a familiar thing to me, I stood still while he wired me up.

He stepped away and nodded. "I'll get that from you after your lecture. Good luck, sir!"

As he walked away, Ash let out a poorly restrained snicker.

"What?" I glared over at him.

He snorted. "Oh, you know, _sir_."

"Whatever," I rolled my eyes and led the way towards the stage.

"I'll never get used to that, Gary," Ash said as he caught up to me. Lucky guy. He didn't have to dress up as much as I did. I was kind of envious of his dark blue jeans and casual shirt.

Of course, he was wearing a pair of hiking boots. He practically lived in those damned things.

"Actually," Ash said (and I groaned a bit at his mind reading). "She won't let me wear them in bed."

"Ketchum?"

"Yes, Oak?"

"Shut up about what you two do in bed. I really don't need to be sick before I go on stage."

"No sense of humor."

"Oh, I have a sense of humor," I smirked. "It ran away when it heard you hinting about your bedroom activities."

Ash paused when we reached two sets of stairs. Both went up, though the left side went to the stage and the right side led to the audience.

Ash cocked his head to the side. "You have one other person who wants to see you before you go on stage."

I looked around the nearly empty hall. What there was that was in the area of the behind the scenes crew were not near us. "Stage hands don't count, Ash."

"Nah, she's waiting at the top of the stairs." His grin grew a little more, and landed a friendly punch on my upper right arm. "Catch ya after the show, Oak."

Knowing full well who he was talking about, I grinned as well and returned his punch. "I'll make sure to give you a discount on my autograph, Ketchum."

With that, I raced up the stairs, taking them two at a time. When I got to the top of the stairs, Cade was sitting at my wife's feet. I took in the sight of her as if it was the first time I was seeing her. Seeing as how today was the day that Mewtwo initially took away my life, it was even more important that I take in every facet of my wife, the love of my life.

She'd dressed up for today, wearing a snug little black dress that hugged her slender body. Her waist length hair was pulled up in a sloppy, yet artistic bun. I didn't really care about any of that. I knew how gorgeous she was.

Her eyes blazed at me, crinkled at the corners as she smiled at me. "About time you got here, babe. I thought you were going to be late or something."

As if I'd be late to my own funeral. The thought hit me hard and I grabbed her in a hug that swept her off her feet.

"Whoa, hey there, mister!" Her arms wrapped around my neck as I gently let her stand on her own two feet. "What's gotten into you?"

"Nothing, Misty," I shook my head, ignoring Cade's little laugh at my emotional reaction. "Just really glad to see you."

She landed a thorough kiss on my lips, regretfully pulling away too quickly for my tastes. "That's just a taste of what's in store for you later on."

"What about the kids?" Yes, we have two teenaged children, one boy and one girl.

"After the lecture they're going to be at the lab with Samuel," Her expression was completely smoldering. "We get to pick them up at noon tomorrow." She sighed. "So don't take too long with your lecture."

"Yes, ma'am," I stepped away from her with a sigh. "Maybe I can just postpone the lecture."

"I don't think so," Misty snorted. "There are two thousand people out there who've been waiting to see you."

"Two thousand? Is that it?" Checking on my speech, I pulled out the data pad it was stored on, a little electronic device I'd created ten years ago, then replaced it in my lab coat pocket. "I must be losing my touch."

"Nope, not yet," Misty said, then shoved me towards the wing of the stage. "Go get 'em, tiger."

With Cade by my side, I stepped out on stage. The lights, the crowds, having Cade by my side was all old hat to me. My first lecture had been intense, all full of butterflies in the stomach and being afraid of losing my place in my lecture. Of course, I had little to worry about. All of my lectures had been flawless.

This particular lecture was, according to Ash, the only lecture that had failed.

Throughout the entire lecture, I was on pins and needles, but I didn't lose my place. I'd given Ash a front row seat, just in case Mewtwo decided to suddenly go back on his word. I could see him sitting there, and it gave me peace of mind. He had let me know that I'd vanished about one hour and twenty minutes into the lecture.

And so, those first hour and eighteen minutes had seemed to drag on forever.

At one hour and nineteen minutes, I felt a sweat break out on my forehead. Just a little one. My stomach clenched in anticipation.

It was at one hour and twenty minutes exactly that I felt _it._ For a split second, I felt a sharp pain in my stomach and blurring at the edges of my sight.

_:Gary, you okay?: _It was Ash, reaching out to me telepathically, but I couldn't even form a response in my mind. Not even a snarky one.

For a second I couldn't breathe, couldn't move, even as I heard uneasy murmuring from the audience. From my earpice, I heard the stage manager's voice, asking me similarly to Ash.

Then I felt another sharp pain at my ankle, but this one was a real and very physical pain. I stared down to see Cade, hidden by the podium, with my ankle in his mouth.

He looked up at me with wide eyes blazing red with his fear and his lips puffing out with quick in and exhalations of air.

With a tight smile down at him, I nodded and he released my ankle. He slumped against my leg with a sigh.

"Sorry," I apologized to the crowd. "I just got the most incredible idea."

xXxXx

And that is it for Gary and Cade! I hope you enjoyed reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it.

As always, feel free to leave a review (be it good or bad) or drop me a PM.


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